Iggy Pop’s raw power fueled a wild show of crowdsurfing and pure punk
NEW YORK CITY -- Iggy Pop is still fueled by raw power.
The man born James Newell Osterberg Jr. 68 years ago took the United Palace Theatre stage like an uncaged animal on Tuesday night, nearly every bit as energetic as his 20-something counterparts. He’s all flaxen hair and flailing limbs, beating his chest and maniacally shaking his hips.
Naturally, he’s shirtless after a couple songs.
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The show, a stop on his Post Pop Depression tour, opened with a bombastic rendition of “Lust for Life,” leading into “Sister Midnight” and new track “American Valhalla.” Then Pop stops, pausing to address the audience.
“Turn up the f*ckin’ house lights in this c*cksucker!” he yells.
That’s how most Pop banter goes. Jovial, energetic and loaded with F-bombs. Filtered through a Pop translator, regular sayings like “Thanks for coming” become “F*ckin’ thanks for f*ckin’ coming!” A “nice” audience turns into a “f*ckin’ nice” audience. He vacillates between obscene gratitude and jokey Pop-isms like, “Peace of mind is very hard to find -- unless I get drunk!”
“Peace of mind is very hard to find -- unless I get drunk!”
It's exactly what a Pop fan has come to expect, and a delightfully funny antithesis of a man who’s been known to casually quote Alexis de Tocqueville in interviews.
Despite his years, Pop has an unrelenting physicality and showmanship. He skips, he jumps, he stomps, doing it all through a thick limp. He sticks the microphone down his pants when there’s nothing to sing. He humps and licks the speakers. He crowd surfs. He keeps your eyes locked so hard on him you might forget his band (dressed in matching red and black suits), who also performed on Pop's latest Post Pop Depression album, is actually a pretty phenomenal supergroup comprised of Josh Homme, Dean Fertita and Matt Helders.
There was an immense deference, though, from the band. It’s Pop’s room and he commands it, totally and completely. And the mostly older crowd, decked out in their Bad Brains and David Bowie and Richard Hell shirts, eat it all up, stretching out their hands for a chance to touch his.
Even when you think Pop is tired or winding down, pausing to sit on the stage, he upends your theory by crowdsurfing mere moments later.
The band barreled through tracks, going into “Sixteen,” “In the Lobby” and “Some Weird Sin.” Pop’s vocals stretched beautifully during renditions of “German Days” and “Mass Production.”
Homme got to flex his frontman muscles on “Nightclubbing” and “Gardenia,” swaying like an '80s pop star and smoking a cigarette, pausing to razor out slick guitar solos.
Classic tracks “The Passenger” (which Pop intro'd by shouting “I’m a homeless mother*cker! Pick me up!”) and “China Girl” closed out the night … until that seven song encore. They charged ahead with vintage tracks like “Break Into Your Heart” and “Success,” but left out any Stooges songs (sorry, no “Search and Destroy”).
At one point during the encore, Pop forced his way into the audience to sing from the middle of the room, ringed by a halo of arms and smartphones bobbing up in every direction to capture the image of punk star among the people.
He was right where he belongs.
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Topics Music
Yohana Desta was the senior film reporter for Mashable. She is a Northern Virginia native and an American University grad. She enjoys carefully curating her Instagram account and can often be found reading books, going to concerts, watching movies and learning way too much about pop culture.
