Stooges
Stubb’s, Saturday, March 17
With reunions as much a part of the SXSW program as day-party bacchanalia, the re-formed Stooges closed Saturday night in inimitable style. Shirtless and looking supernaturally fit for a veteran rocker thisclose to 60, Iggy Pop bounded onstage for “Loose.” “Howdy, we’re the fucking Stooges, and we’re gonna sing an animal song,” barked the singer as he introduced “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” Writhing like a bundle of electrified pipe cleaners, Pop crooned, bellowed, crawled, leapt, and prowled across the stage to “TV Eye,” “1970,” and “Funhouse” as the frothing audience egged him on. Moving into this millennium with “Skull Ring,” Pop’s pants slid dangerously below his hipbones, and a few waited for him to paraphrase Mick Jagger’s famous “You don’t want my trousers to fall down, do you?” Instead, he got his ya-ya’s out by hammering “Trolling” and “My Idea of Fun” from the Stooges’ new CD, The Weirdness, with fill-in bassist Mike Watt’s manic energy behind him. “I’m Fried” closed the show with a metallic KO as he invited all the “fat fuckers” onstage with him.
This article appears in March 23 • 2007.