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Sunday 30 May 2010

The Damned/Tenpole Tudor/Texas Terri - ABC Glasgow (28/5/10)

Tonight is the first time that I will have had the pleasure of seeing Texas Terri do her punk thang.
I've been trying to occupy the same space and time as her for years, but one thing or another always seemed to conspire against me and until now it has never panned out how I wanted it to, but better late than never says I.
Unfortunately very few people seem to be looking forward to her set as much as I am.
There's a sprinkling of people resting against the barrier and some of them are no doubt just getting in early for a prime spot for the Damned. Others are starting to congregate around the bar at the back of the venue, but the majority of Damned fans are AWOL. Probably out boosting the profits of the bars around the ABC instead of getting in early doors to witness the so called female Iggy Pop show them how rock and roll should be played.I find myself thinking the usual when this happens, and that's that it's their loss, but this time it's actually pissing me off a bit because Texas Terri is deserving of a far larger and far more enthused audience than what she is getting.
She would literally bleed on the stage for you, but why the **** should she? While some artists and bands go for the shock value I don't get that impression from her. When she gets on a stage it's not just about performing, but instead it seems that it's more about letting loose. Its a cathartic experience, a punk rock primal scream (No, not the band Primal Scream. Fucin' google it). You can tell that she has to let every yelp, scream and yowl out and it's powerful stuff.
By mid set she is off the stage and leaving her band behind her to forge out alone into the barren no mans land that exists in front of her. With the mic in her hand and a great deal of bloody minded intent she's out pushing at the fringes trying to get a reaction. Getting into peoples faces and trying to make a connection on a primordial level. A connection that's not a cerebral one, but instead pulls at your core. It's intense and I can only guess at what it would be like in a small heaving and overcrowded club sized venue.
Her set proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that she has more balls that 75% of the mainly male crowd and in my opinion the next tattoo she gets should be one of a medal on her breast, and when people ask what it is she should tell them that it was awarded to her for services to punk rock that were above and beyond the call of duty.
I'm being serious here. When someone, anyone, puts this much effort into a gig and exposes themselves to this degree in front of a crowd then at the very least they should get rewarded for it with a greater level of appreciation than what was on show tonight.
As time was running out Terri and her band managed to squeeze in some paint stripping, foundation shaking versions of Sonic Reducer and I wanna be your dog. Both are punk rock staples that are played regularly enough, but tonight they are ripped apart and gutted for us.
This really is what gig going is all about. There's nothing choreographed about it, nothing that smacks of forward planning. It's all intensely loose and all the better for it.
Maybe next time Texas Terri visits these shores more people will get with the programme and give her a warmer welcome, because she most certainly deserves it.

Edward Tudor Pole has been dragging his battered acoustic up and down this country for years. Sometimes he has a band backing him, but it's now more common to see him standing up there alone playing the court jester.
It's a joke that could wear a bit thin if seen often enough, but in small doses, and with the charm offensive turned up to max, it works. His style of rockabilly and skiffle is actually very entertaining if you like that sort of thing. Fortunately I do so it wasn't a hardship to stand pint in hand and tap my toe for the length of his set.
Funnily enough everyone else in the thickening crowd seemed to be enjoying themselves too. I wonder if they all have Lonnie Donegan albums stashed away at home and this is them getting in touch with their inner skiffle.
By the time he gets to the hit, Swords of a thousand men, there are plenty of people willing to drunkenly singalongaeddie.
There's not a lot more you can say about his slot. It's verging on end of the pier in a English seaside resort that has seen better days shtick, but with a pint or ten consumed everyone is up for it.
Strange days indeed when a punk crowd are more at home roaring along to an acoustic set of eccentric english ditties about moustaches and such rather than getting down and dirty with Texas Terri, but at the end of the day if everyone is having fun it's neither here nor there what I think, and anyway, everyone is here to see the Damned.
So it's another year and another Damned gig and I'm beginning to lose count of how many times I've seen them. Not that I'm complaining though.
While I'd never claim to be the sort of uber-fan who travels the length and breadth of the United Kingdom to get a Damned fix, I do however make it my mission not to miss them when they roll into town.
Truth be told I have even been known to thrash about knee deep in a muddy field to catch them when they have taken to the festival circuit.
Let's just put it this way. If there is a conceivable way for me to make it to one of their shows then I'm there.
Looking back I guess you could say that I've stood shoulder to shoulder with the band and weathered the storms of popularity for more years than I now care to admit.
When their punk credentials waxed and waned I still carried the flame, when the goth crowd took to them in droves I continued to keep the faith, and now, by dint of never saying die, when they have finally reached the stage of being able to reap the rewards of their efforts and can claim to be bonafide punk legends, I can proudly say that I'm still here, still down at the front singing my little heart out.
When I look back the saying that it's not the destination, but the journey that's important rings true.
Tonight in front of a fairly large crowd in a fairly large venue everything seems to just click into place.
They blitzkrieg onto the stage and into Nasty and the crowd are with them from the outset.
Captain Sensible scythes his guitar through the air and grins like an idiot. Vanian looks about ten years younger than he did last year. Punks Dorian Grey has dispensed with his shop soiled Clark Gable look and reverted back to the demonic two tone quiff, leather motorcycle jacket and black jeans that was probably the most iconic of the looks he has experimented with, and without wanting to sound like a confused fan boy I've still got to say he looks fantastic.
In fact the whole band look like being on this stage, right at this moment in time, is exactly where they all want to be.
As they kick into Disco Man they sound and look as fresh as any young band that are just starting out.I can feel the hairs standing up on the back of my neck and a electric burst of excitement runs up my spine. It's as the push forward into I just can't be happy today that it hits me why I love the Damned. It's because they're a bullshit free band, What you see is what you get and when it all falls into place it's a magical moment in time.
In the past I've listened to their detractors claiming that they're a joke band and in my opinion it's just a case of them not getting it. Of course there's humour in what they do, but what the **** is wrong with that? Isn't a huge chunk of entertainment about leaving your audience with a smile on there faces anyway?
By the halfway mark I decide that standing at the side of the stage isn't really cutting it and by New Rose I'm in the crowd working up a sweat, getting elbows smacked off my head and allowing myself to be tossed about as the crowd surges one way and another. Bad time for Bonzo, and shadow of love fly past, by neat, neat, neat I'm flagging and then in the middle of stretcher case baby I'm starting to crash and burn until Fan Club gives me a second wind. That's it though. The Damned might not be finished, but I am. Thanks for the night, Jet Boy Jet Girl and Smash it up come in quick succession, but I'm back at the side of the stage catching my breath.
Last time I seen then in the very same venue I was suitably impressed with the set, but this time it was magnificent.
Naysayers can say what they want. Claim them to be washed up yadda yadda yadda. Whatever. They weren't at the gig, and if they had been they would have had to eat their words. Rest assured the next time the Damned stop off at Glasgow or anywhere else on the west coast I'll be there.

Tuesday 25 May 2010

Darth Elvis/The Brothel Corpse Trio/Tragic City Thieves - Aberdeen 22/5/10

The Moorings in Aberdeen is a rock and roll oasis in a desert of granite. A hole in the wall pub that has crammed every tacky pirate cliché into every nook and cranny while also schizophrenically aspiring to be the biker/titty bar from every seventies exploitation b movie you could care to mention.
In the gents toilets there’s a plaque asking patrons to kindly not eat the urinal cakes while in the ladies another reserves a cubicle for quiet sex. There’s even a chalk outline on the dance floor hinting that at some point some sort of heinous, and fatal, crime has been committed.
It’s my sort of place I guess.
The sort that offers a port to lay anchor in while you ride out the storm of mediocrity that rages all about us.
Tonight the in house entertainment is provided by glam rock terrorists Tragic City Thieves, raspy voiced necrophiliacs The Brother Corpse Trio and an Elvis impersonator with a fixation on Star Wars called Darth Elvis.
Not your run of the mill line up anywhere else, but perfectly suited to The Moorings I suppose.

Tragic City Thieves as a band are out of their west coats comfort zone tonight and one man down due to bassist Jim Rider pulling a muscle in his back while sitting about doing nothing much at all.
In rock circles that’s not as cool as pulling a groupie, or even pulling your own knob in the back of the van after a gig, but regardless of how mundane his accident was he was still posted as MIA, and it was down to the remaining musketeers to carry the show.
….and carry the show they did.
As someone who has seen them a fistful of times I could be a bit hypercritical and draw attention to how the lack of Jim Rider swinging his bass about impacted on the sound, the look and the whole last gang in town attitude they have, but if I did, then that would detract from the fact that they still managed to make many other bands look pedestrian.
Maybe it was because they were down to three men, but I was getting a distinct Manic Street Preachers vibe from them. Not the latter day bombastic stadium friendly Manic Street Preachers, but the young hungry and slightly anarchic band that had the music press all in a froth many moons ago when they ripped through every toilet in the UK passing itself off as a music venue.
The last time I seen these guys it was Stu on guitar that shone, but tonight the gig rests on drummer Divs diminutive shoulders. He’s Animal from the muppets peaking on an amphetamine rush. All leopard print flurries with flashes of gaffa taped nipples and Slipknot grunts and growls into the mic. Like much in life it shouldn’t work, but it does.
While he has always contributed backing vocals I’ve never seen him this vocal. It’s as if he decided that as they’re a member down he would have to do the work of two, and by the end of the set he’s a sweating puddle of wrung out sinew looking for a drink or ten to re-hydrate himself.
CJ battles heroically with the job of being front man tonight. Without the full band to carry certain songs he’s nailed to the stage. If, as usual, he was to abandon his guitar and leap into the crowd he knows that musically everything will fall flat on its arse. So against all his natural instincts he hangs in there behind the mic and chugs away on his guitar to cover as much of the sound as he can.
For the uninitiated I’m sure that this is enough. The passion is still there and as clichéd as this sounds the band still rock. but I can’t help thinking that those who are impressed with this gig would be blown away by the full band experience.
So hurry back Jim. The guys need you and you’re missed.

The Brothel Corpse Trio are a quartet tonight. As it’s their album launch they have a couple of mates up to add backing vocals to the set. Not sure why though as the ’guests’ take centre stage and do little more than draw attention away from the rest of the band.
One does a very relaxed sort of chicken dance with his thumbs in his pockets and adds some vocals, while the other stands there like a store room dummy emulating the nodding head dogs that people place in the back window of their car.
Meanwhile the real trio give it all they’ve got. They remind me of a band who aspire to be a horror punk version of the Kings of Nuthin and it’s an attainable dream to be honest. They have all the parts and it’s just a case of putting them all together and fine tuning it a bit.
The vocals are imbued with whiskey soaked raspy bar room brawl bravado, and the guitar work is frenetic enough to get blood pressure up, meanwhile while the upright bass and drums do their job of holding everything together. They have a no frills approach, but it works. It’s all there.
My only criticism is that after the third song everything started to sound a bit similar.
Maybe if they expanded the band and brought in some sax and honkytonk piano everything would explode in your face, with the show jumping from feeling like a raucous party to verging instead on being a riotous assembly. That’s what they should be aiming for.
Highlight of the set for an old fella like me was their cover of Surfin Bird.
Everything else was entertaining enough. But just needs a bit of tinkering to get the most from it.
Headliners Darth Elvis are of course a comedy band, but the best always seem to be the ones who take the tongue in cheek attitude to the max, and Darth Elvis and the Tattoine Trio most definitely take it to the max tonight.
They live and breath it when they tread the boards. Coming on to the strains of the Star Wars theme we have a Jedi on guitar, a storm trooper on drums and a bounty hunter on bass, and as backing bands go I guess you can’t go wrong with a bunch of galactic warriors like this on your side.
The star of the show however is the King himself. Was there ever going to be any doubt of that?
The Sith Lord, Darth Elvis takes the stage resplendent in white rhinestone jumpsuit, cloak and black leather glove, does some stretches, gets into the feel of it, poses a bit throwing Elvis shapes, and then proceeds to envelope the large and very drunken crowd in the palm of his hand.The part is played to the hilt. Blending the king of rock and roll with the fictional Star Wars bad guy to the extent that you don‘t know where one ends and the other begins is comedy genius.
Everyone knows the Elvis material, and everyone is well aware of the Star Wars movies, so mixing them up together doesn’t take too much to wrap your head around. It’s not that much of a reach to get it.
Songs like That’s alright Jabba and You aint nothing but a nerf herder are very easily sung along to, and the, by now, drunken audience are quite happy to lend their vocal talents to them all, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I was belting them out along with the best of them.
This is pretty much the perfect entertainment for a night out.
No one is taking themselves too seriously and if bands intent is for people to go home with a smile on their face then it’s mission accomplished.
If Darth and his comrades in arms ever decide to pay a visit to a venue near you then I would advise anyone to jump at the chance of letting your hair down and grabbing yourself a hunka hunka burning Sith.

As I semi-drunkenly weaved my way to the door I had to laugh thinking about what anyone who had strayed into the Moorings would have thought.
Probably that they had just, like Brad and Janet, took a wrong turning and left normality aside for a short holiday in an all singing and dancing alternative universe.

Monday 24 May 2010

Normal services will be resumed shortly

I've been a bit lax with updating the blog and without going into details it's just that there's been a few personal issues to deal with, work has got in the way and I've generally just been very busy.
I will however be back in the saddle very soon. So watch this space,,,,,,but don't do it intently. I mean don't waste your time waiting expectantly for something massive. It's really just going to be more of the same old bollocks.
Meanwhile here's some news for our ol' mate Nekro.
Miss Joan Jett has just sold out the 100 Club in what seems like record time. Not sure how many of the tickets went to the industry types and not fans, but it was still nice, if bittersweet as I didn't get a ticket, to see them being snapped up so fast.
Still on Joan Jett...I wish...I seen this on my travels. Shame it's not inflatable and life sized.

Tuesday 18 May 2010

Tragic City Thieves/Strike Nineteens/The Stagger Rats - King Tuts - Glasgow - 15/5/10

King Tuts Wah Wah Hut has a legendary reputation that’s been hard won. No doubt about it. It‘s an inarguable fact, and the long list of successful acts that have cut their teeth on its stage is very impressive indeed, but it’s not a venue that I’ve found myself often in over recent years.
I look at the gigs advertised and a few jump out, but it’s really only a few.
The majority just don’t seem to appeal to be honest.
Most of the names of the bands appearing can be found in the pages of the weekly music sheets and maybe that’s the problem.
The venue seems to have went from breaking bands to jumping at the coat tails of whoever is touted as the next big thing and lost its own identity on the way.
Then again that’s only an opinion and rest assured there would be many people who would disagree.
I just always remember it as a far more eclectic venue than I feel it is now.
Regardless of my thoughts though this was the second time I’d washed up in it in less than a week.
This time it’s not Q magazines latest tips for stardom, but instead home grown heroes Tragic City Thieves playing a Saturday night headlining spot though.
First band of the night however were Edinburgh’s “The Stagger Rats”. A band who casually rattle out a modern twist on sixties styled psychedelia.
Of course comparisons with The Coral will no doubt be made due to the Hammond having its ivories tinkled, but there’s a more muscular feel to these guys. They’re less whimsical and more in your face than the lads from the Wirral. Not a bad thing in my book.
The Hammond itself isn’t used to drive the songs, but instead enriches the sound and keeps it afloat. While the duel vocals they use allow them to broaden the range of the material that they have and truth be told it’s all pretty impressive.
Definitely a band to keep an eye out for. So says their fan Butler, and who would argue with the joyously rat arsed Butler?
Not I.
Next up were “The Strike Nineteens” who I have a huge problem with.
It’s not that I didn’t like them, but jaysus lads, what’s the point in writing such anthemic and slightly bombastic, indie rock classics in waiting and then playing them without an ounce of passion?
Technically everything sounded great, but apart from the singer the band was promoting a personality free zone.
It looked like they had arrived at King Tuts from a shift in B&Qs, barring, once again, the singer who carries the show.
Of course the front man is usually the focal point, but the rest of the band really need to get out into that spotlight and shine along with him.
If they did then I would guarantee that the punters would come away from a gig saying it was great instead of just good.
Instead it currently feels like the band are session musicians with loads of talent, but are lacking in the charisma that is required for playing live.
I sincerely hope they get it sorted out because musically they are a cut above most support bands that I’ve seen.The night was however always going to be owned by the Tragic City Thieves.
Each time I see them I expect the show to level out, but instead they keep pushing at the limits and bringing that little bit more to it.
Tonight it’s Stuart that’s pushing hard with his guitar work driving everything along at breakneck speed.
It’s a combination of a better sound and a pedal that’s giving it that bit more oomph and when he hits into a solo, fuck me, it sounds immense.
No one is playing like these guys at the moment. Too rock for the punk crowd and too punk for the rock crowd they are left to forge ahead into pastures new while picking up independently minded fans on the way.
Everyone else is just going to have to play catch up with them. Once the album is out and they get a few support slots in place with some established bands they are going to blow up in everyone’s face.
Then again what are people really waiting for, best to just jump aboard just now and strap yourself in for a bumpy ride.
Bloody great band I tell thee.

Wednesday 12 May 2010

The New To Q Tour -Goldhawks/Tiffany Page/Detroit Social Club - King Tuts Glasgow -11/05/10

The New To Q tour rolled into town last night and provided Glasgow with an insight into who the magazine considers to be the shining stars of the future, and unlike last years NME debacle, a tour that was more miss than hit, Q actually appears to have their finger on the pulse and managed to throw into the spotlight a few bands that are worthy of the next big thing tag.
First of the night to grace the stage was Goldhawks who previously impressed when they recently supported The Courteeners on their UK tour.
Once again they played an accomplished set that begged the question why aren’t they already massive? The answer may simply be down to them being shy a few months of getting their debut album “Trick of Light” out to the public.
Never the less, once that’s out there I have no doubt that their fortunes will change, and change quickly. The music loving public are going to fall for this band in a big way.
It’s rare for me to offer guarantees of stardom as the music business is so fickle, but I’m making an exception in Goldhawks case. This band are going to make it. You only have to see them, and I mean really see them and listen to them, rather than attend the gig and stand at the bar, to realize their potential.Right at this moment a stage the size of the legendary King Tuts is far too small for them. Everything about them screams stadium rockers in waiting and it really is just a matter of time before everyone else catches up to this fact.
As this is the second time I have seen them in a matter of months I’m personally very pleased that they’ve cemented my opinion of them as being a band to watch out for.
It’s a clichéd term, but “remember the name” because you are going to be hearing a lot more of them before the year is out.

Next to play was Tiffany Page who as an artist is more than living up to the hype. Her vocals are emotionally taut and effective throughout and her band solidly support her, but there was something about the set that was niggling with me and it was only later that I started to get to grips with it.
The problem was that I was getting the impression that much of the focus was on her looks rather than her singing abilities, and the band, who were absolutely fantastic, were being relegated to mere bit players in the show.
This is a huge disservice to them as a band, and rather sexist as well, but I’m not really too sure how unwilling Tiffany Page is to go along with this. She seemed to be trying rather too hard to convey a degree of detached disinterest in the photographers, who were incessantly blocking the view of the paying customers, while at the same time I doubt that there was a moment that wasn’t being considered as a photo opportunity.

In hindsight this is the thing I keep coming back to and that’s a shame as it really has overshadowed the performance. Instead of coming away from the gig enthused about them I’ve found little cracks that I’ve worried at until I’m no longer sure just how much I enjoyed them.

Everything that is required for a great gig was there, but the posing for the cameras got in the way. Maybe I could best sum it up by saying that being at the gig felt like I was like participating in some arty photo shoot. Or that more accurately that I was an unpaid extra at an arty photo shoot.
Drop that and I would have been far more positive about them.
Still a few lessons to be learned then.
As for the Detroit Social Club I didn’t bother staying for them. On record they sound like a Kasabian tribute band and I wasn’t really in the mood to hang about and let them prove me wrong. So with it already having been a long day we headed of and contented ourselves by playing Goldhawks all the way home while we wondered why they weren’t headlining the tour.
Thanks to Kel for the set list.

www.myspace.com/goldhawks
www.myspace.com/tiffanypage

Thursday 6 May 2010

Blog docs.

While trawling the 'net looking for some Stooges flotsam and jetson I found a podcast covering the making of Raw Power. Interviews, talking heads commenting and some damn fine music.
All free, all legal and you can get it here.
http://podcasts.legacyrecordings.com/rock/iggy
There is also a Clash one here.
http://podcasts.legacyrecordings.com/rock/the-clash
and Johnny Cash - Folsom Prison.
http://podcasts.legacyrecordings.com/rock/the-clash
So shut up and sit down and eat your heart out with these beauties.

Tuesday 4 May 2010

Iggy and The Stooges - London - 2/5/10

According to cultural historians it was a single critical act of random violence at Altamont that delivered the killing blow to the sixties.
This opinion has been repeated so often that most people would be forgiven for taking it as a fact, but is that the whole story?
Did the sixties really take its last breath as the knife slid into Meredith Hunter?
I don’t think so.
Slip off the revisionist glasses and it’s obvious that plenty of people were still happily basking in an extended summer of love well into the early seventies.
There is no doubt that the events captured on “Sympathy for the Devil” took the sixties crashing to its knees, but wasn’t the final nail in its coffin hammered home by Iggy and the Stooges in ’73 when Raw Power was issued?
Was Raw Power the real watershed moment?
I’m not going to argue that this is how it was at the time as it wasn’t, but in hindsight, and with the benefit of being able to see what direction music took since, I sincerely believe that it’s very obvious how pivotal Raw Power was as an album.
With a nihilistic and primal howl they seemed to take all the musical threads from the fifties and sixties and weave a new pattern from them.
A dark tapestry that while admittedly not changing everything overnight, most certainly served as a template for much of what would come in its wake.
Looking at it from one angle it’s a simple album that has a familiar and well worn subject matter at it’s core. It’s all sex drugs and rock’n’roll.
The unholy trinity that have been every parents nightmare since the first rocker let rip and shook his hips in a juke joint somewhere far back in the mists of time.
Yet what makes it so different from all that preceded it is that while it does have that familiar core it’s also steeped in the muscular and visceral madness of loathing through confusion.
At its dark heart it sounds to me like a coming of age album.
A coming of age album that will forever connect with every disillusioned and pissed of teen in the world, and maybe therein lies it’s appeal.
While Jagger and co sang “If I could stick a knife in my heart, Suicide right on stage, Would it be enough for your teenage lust, Would it help to ease the pain” you felt it was a hollow promise, but on “Raw Power” Iggy and the Stooges sound like they were ready and willing to spill everything out for you.
Every dysfunctional truth torn out and laid bare before you regardless of the reaction it would engender.
It’s an out of kilter work of genius whose appeal never diminishes.
Poor production and shit re-mastered reissues can’t contain it because it is more than that.
It’s quite simply a masterpiece. One that, like Peter Pan, refuses to grow up.
Simultaneously it is of its time, and out of time.
It’s a bridge from there to here in whatever context you want to put it in.
This is why when I heard that ATP had arranged for Iggy and The Stooges to play it in its entirety in the Hammersmith Apollo I dived at the chance of a ticket.
While naysayer’s claimed that a band fronted by a 63 year old could never manage to do justice to an album they created over thirty years ago I wasn’t willing to miss this just in case they did.
Let’s face it. Iggy and the Stooges doing Raw Power live is like a holy punk pilgrimage that seriously can’t be passed up on.
So London was calling and I was answering.

On the night we managed to get in early enough to grab a position against the barrier and waited for Suicide - who were going to play their debut in its entirety - to get things started.
Now I was keen to see them and considered their addition to the bill as the icing on the cake, but I’ve got to say that now that I have experienced Suicide it’s blatant that all they are about is confrontation.
I have never heard anything as loud. Motorhead sound like kids throwing toys about in comparison. The noise emanating from the stage physically pushes against your body and you can feel it internally pounding at your organs.
This isn’t entertainment.
From Ghostrider onward it is a relentless war of attrition between band and audience.
You don’t go to be entertained by them.
You go to perversely push yourselves to the limits of endurance and in the aftermath proclaim you survived them.
Thankfully the claim that they were doing the whole album proved to be false and we didn’t get the near ten and a half minute Frankie Teardrop.
In retrospect I can say that its inclusion may have served to do little more than decimated the audience.
Once they finished you could see pained looks on peoples faces.
Some confusion to, but mainly pain.
It’s not an experience I wish to repeat. Suicide can stay in my record collection where I can play them at a decibel level that doesn’t leave me feeling like I’ve woken up with a hangover and found myself with my head stuck in a samba drum as Mardi Gras goes on in full flow all around me.
Everyone who managed to watch them from start to finish really deserves a medal in my opinion, although the people who turned up late, but just in time for the Stooges, probably deserve a degree of recognition just for their keen self preservation skills.
Then with the buzzing still reverberating around my ear canals, and without any introduction or prior warning, the Stooges were there and storming into Raw Power.
With the audience caught off guard it seemed to take at least half a minute before they caught their breath and then erupted in fervent adulation.
Every misconceived doubt that anyone harboured was banished from the moment that Iggy cast his leather waistcoat aside.
This is why I had bought a ticket.
This is why I love the Stooges. This is what music is all about.
There isn’t a lull.
Everything is wrung out on stage.
Search and Destroy is a behemoth of a track and Gimme Danger left me with goosebumps rising on my arms and the hairs standing on the back of my neck.
This is nothing like an Iggy Pop show. This is more. James Williamson is a demon on the guitar. He might not be moving about much but he is sonically the perfect foil to Iggy performance, while Steve Mackay is obviously enjoying himself on the sax.
The whole sound is richer than I expected. If I could grab this and have it as my ears heard it on the night it would be my perfect take of the album.
It was seriously that good.
By “Your pretty face is going to hell” Iggy is in the audience. He literally flies into it like a heat seeking missile. This is a man in his sixties stage diving and there is nothing unnatural about it at all.
During “Shake Appeal “ he is doing his usual and inviting people up and of course there are plenty of people more than willing to join them on stage.
Spastically jerking across the stage there is no stopping Iggy. He’s a powerhouse.
I’m wilting and he is still driving onwards and upwards.
By this point I’m losing track of what order everything is coming in. I’m being swept away with it all.
This is up there as one of the best gigs I have ever been to, and if I consider that I’ve been going to approximately three gigs a month, every month for the last twenty eight years that tells you something about how fuckin’ special this was.
Penetration was pretty much perfection, as was Death Trip. Hell the whole of Raw Power was perfect.
Once they were finished that we got songs from the debut, Funhouse and even Kill City.
Everything was pounding by in a rush by this point. It’s frantic and wild in the crowd. A real melting pot of ages and sexes thrashing about in ecstasy.
I got a right was a clarion call to arms that we all wanted to answer, I wanna be your dog will always be a fans favourite and tonight showed why.
Can you imagine a gig that he didn’t actually perform it?
The crowd would lynch him.
Open up and Bleed had me gasping for air in slack jawed in wonderment.
Then the Stooges left the stage leaving Iggy to bait and toy with the crowd before he finally disappeared to rapturous applause that he milked to the maximum.
If it ended right at that point I would have been more than happy, but no, with hardly any time for the audience to take a breath the roadies are holding the guitars out for Scott Ashton and James Williamson who once again slip the straps over their shoulders and commence to blow everyone away on Funhouse, then Kill City before finally Johanna.
Iggy doesn’t appear to be flagging at all throughout the whole performance.
While he is very obviously sweating like a racehorse I would have bet money that we, as an audience, would have capitulated and threw in the towel before he would have.
Again the band are gone and again Iggy is milking it.
Of course much of this is a tried and tested performance, but how much is an act and how much is just wild abandon is hard to say. You can’t see the joins. I’ll say it again. It’s perfection.
If I had to rate this out of ten then I would have to give it the old Spinal Tap eleven.

Just had a trawl about and found the set list. Read it and weep.
Raw Power
Search And Destroy
Gimme Danger
Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell
Shake Appeal
I Need Somebody
Penetration
Death Trip
Cock In My Pocket
I Got A Right
I Wanna Be Your Dog
Nineteen Seventy
I.A. Blues
Night Theme
Beyond The Law
Open Up And Bleed
Fun House
Kill City
Johanna