where we'll join our heroine in her travails in search of kick ass music and more

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Iggy & the Stooges @ the United Palace - 4.9.07

Iggy.
The Stooges.
Together.
Is there anything better?

They played the United Palace, a formerly vaudevillian showplace, turned church, and now host to the occasional raucous rock show. Did they really know what they were getting themselves into when they booked this crowd? But here's the thing. Although the show might've looked scary to an outsider, it was far from that, if you were actually there. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the audiences for Iggy Pop shows have been the most well-behaved, polite crowds I've ever encountered. Usually made up of a whole lot of young kids and a whole lot of not-so-young-anymore grown up kids (think late 40s-50s), the blend somehow works well. And even though there usually aren't a lot of women in the crowd, again, I've never felt uncomfortable in the least. This show was no different.

I got there a bit later than I'd wanted to with Iggy already on stage. It was quite a trek uptown, but contrary to my own concert buddy for the evening and some other folk's opinions, I'd certainly be back. It's an amazing venue - architecturally schizophrenic and pretty damn cool. We had not so great orchestra seats, not that we ever sat on them. Since the show had already started by the time we arrived, someone else had moved forward and taken our seats. Or at least that's what we guessed, since we couldn't even get close to them, due to the overwhelming amount of people crowding the aisles. So what are two fans to do? We moved up too. We ended up standing on the right side of the stage - about 10th row or so. We were close enough to not miss any of the action, but not close enough that we'd get bopped on the head by a mosher's leg.


I love this photo. I believe this was during I Wanna Be Your Dog when Iggy exalted the crowd to get on stage...which they very quickly did. They all get so excited that for a while Iggy is thoroughly engulfed by them. Let's play Where's Iggy shall we?

And then this one...
By this point, the whole audience was up - orchestra, balcony, everywhere - and some leaning dangerously over the balcony. But still, everything went off without a hitch. Maybe one or two fans got overzealous while on stage and had to be escorted out. But that's really nothing in a show like this. Iggy and the Stooges came on and gave us a performance that would make any current 20-something pop punk posers envious.


P.S. I did have more close-up photos of Iggy. But they all turned out dreadful. Mostly due to the fact that no mere camera (at least not mine) could manage to capture his kinetic energy for posterity. They all came out as big blurs. So if anyone wants a bunch of skinny blurs, shoot me off an email and I'll be glad to send them your way ;o)

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