Iggy and the Stooges LIVE at The Warfield (April 21, 2007) Review

A month or so I mentioned to my brother that I was thinking of visiting him and wondered what would be a good weekend to visit San Francisco. He immediately mentioned that tickets to see the re-formed Stooges just went on sale and he was trying to figure out who to go with. Of course, I'm as big of a Stooges/Iggy Pop fan as he is, so it didn't take much arm twisting and our problem were solved: I knew what weekend to visit and he had someone to see the show with.

The Stooges of course are the seminal late sixties/early seventies proto-punk band fronted by crazy man Iggy Pop. This last year they reformed with original members Iggy Pop, guitarist Ron Asheton, drummer Scott Asheton. Mike Watt (ex-Minutemen, ex-Firehose) joined on as bassist, replacing the late Dave Alexander. The released an album early in 2007 titled The Weirdness (which generally garnered poor reviews) and began touring.

Sistas In the Pit, a Bay Area ban, opened the show. I didn't find them to be very exciting, but they were competent and most of the crowd responded well to their set. So all and all not to bad for a warm up band that I didn't have any previous knowledge of.

Next up the Stooges, as the stage was cleared we found out that this show was on Iggy's 60th birthday. That's right, the man of the hour was turning 60; what were we in for? When the lights went down, the first one out was Iggy, jumping and running all around...for the whole show. It was crazy to watch, he looked like he was 30; stage diving, throwing his mic stand (and eventually breaking it), flailing himself around with abandon, the likes of which I assumed I'd only ever see via youtube videos of Stooges shows from the 70s.

The rest of the band wasn't nearly as active, mostly staying in their spots, letting Iggy stretch out across the stage. But they put out an impressive amount of sound and noise (I mean that in a good way). The band played both new songs and classics (in about a 1:2 ratio) at breakneck pace, rarely taking a pause until the first of 3 encores. Towards the later half of the show avant-garde saxophonist Steve Mackay joined them (as he did on their 1970 album Fun House), only adding to the dense chaos that Watt and the Ashetons were pumping out. Some of the classics they played were "I Wanna Be Your Dog", "1970", "No Fun", "TV Eye". The new songs fit in well sound wise, though it seemed like Iggy's vocal style was more restrained on the new material.

As far as the venue goes, the Warfield is a great old theatre. The sound was generally good, although Watt's bass tended toward the muddier end. Interestingly, while they sold beer and wine, you couldn't take any beverages into the theatre proper. Any drinking had to be done in the lobby areas, making those spaces very crowded in between acts. One pleasant surprise was that they were handing out high quality posters for the show in the way out. A nice souvenir. (I'll try to post a picture soon!)

All and all, if you like noise, chaos, or punk rock and the Stooges are coming to your town, you can't go wrong. They may be 60, but they've proven to me that they haven't lost any of the edge they had back in their heyday.