Incredibly Iggy Pop is back with one of the hottest bands I've seen him play with during the 40 plus years I've been seeing him play live, this time around in the cavernous main hall at Alexander Palace.
We arrived shortly after openers Joe & The Shitboys had started there set of Faroese Queercore punk, they sought to nail the bands reputation as the angriest band to ever come from the Faroe Islands, by playing generally short sharp blasts of hardcore from Drugs For Kids Joe was shooting Bile at us, while the Shitboys who I assume are the kids of Shit & Chalou were stinking up the place.
Manspreader was aimed at all sorts of wrongheaded straight white blokes, Don't Tell Us What To Do was fighting for more gay rights in the Faroe Islands, so same sex couples will be allowed to adopt kids in Circle Jerks style. Kill The Darlings was the bands pro abortion rights Pansy Division style stomper. Joe harangued us while introducing Life Is Great You Suck while attempting to get us to sing along.
They then had a really bad intro routine to the bands deconstruction of Wonderwall played in the style of Slo-Deluxe's Vanilla Ice In Hell which is where this bunch of noise should reside, before they closed with what I guessed as Macho Man Randy Travers that was absurd as it sounds.
After the break it was time for this gig to really shift up several gears with the arrival of Bob Vylan the London based duo, who as they always do opened with some Guided Meditation And Light Stretching with Bob the singer leading the stretching as Bobby the drummer laid down some heavy beats and colossal bass rumbles, this led into Bobby asking I Heard You Want Your Country Back the duo's monumental screed against the gammon hoards idiocy.
They got loads of people bouncing for Northern Line that was angry, but with that cheeky edge to it. Bobby made clear that part of the reason they are on stage supporting Iggy is that they Dream Big and encouraged us all to do the same ,while Bobby's colossal drums devastated, set against the samples and synths he fired off. Bobby gave us a story about what happened the night before he flew to Australia to support Amyl & The Sniffers by way of an intro to He's A Man that throws shade on all domestic abusers who should get flattened asap.
Bobby then left Bobby to play his solo intro to the bands version of Everybody Loves The Sunshine and once the sampled vocals had everyone singing along the other Bobby came back on for the crescendo of this soul standard. It was time to ring The Alarm as the bodies were hitting the floor once more, too much killing and hate in the world, they want to bring the love.
Pretty Little Songs can never stop war and decimation but they want to try, they may have been spouting a rather strident pro-Palestinian position, that made some of us feel uncomfortable, especially when they called for some of our friends to be killed, who happen to currently be in the IDF, no I don't support any acts of violence by either side in that millennial long dispute.
They then closed with Hunger Games to make sure we all know we should be proud be happy, they had gone down a storm like they have every time I've seen them.
Soon enough Iggy Pop trotted onstage with his current shit hot eight-piece band who launched into a mesmerizing version of TV Eye that had super cool trombone and Trumpet from Corey D King and Pan Amsterdam. They went straight into Raw Power sounding immense with Iggy's vocals sounding great Ale Campos and Nick Zinner really shredded on guitar. Like always Iggy made clear I Got A Right to do exactly what he has wanted to do all his life.
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Gimme Danger had all the electricity and edge it should have this was as heavy as any of the Stooges reunion shows, with ferocious guitar. They slowed things down a touch for The Passenger built around Urian Hackney's colossal drum sound and Matt Sweeney's super solid bass. Lust For Life was a huge sing along as Iggy stalked the stage and threw as many of his signature shapes that he can still manage, his wrinkly flesh shook with the effort of showing us just what A Lust For Life he still has.
Iggy Introduced Death Trip as about being in a bad place, I think Ale took the guitar solo on this one, that just ripped the hell out of it, with Seamus Beaghen's super insistent keyboards, he was brilliant throughout. Iggy kept things in his early career for I'm Loose that means something different now his skin is loose in ways it wasn't when he wrote the song.
The brass section really ramped things up on I Wanna Be Your Dog another one of the greatest hits that wasn't originally a hit in this set, Iggy rolled around on stage and got on all fours at one point, while the band sounded ferocious. Search & Destroy was a full-on mission statement that Iggy and this band take no prisoners whatsoever. Iggy was now ready to be Down On The Street that had some of the free jazz inspiration it always had in this full-on version.
Iggy introduced 1970 as being about what it was like to be young in 1970 back when it felt alright. Iggy told us I'm Sick Of You was about needing to leave someone, this version opened with Pan Amsterdam's trumpet solo that everything else was built around, right until the break down when Iggy really let loose as to his need to get away from you.
Iggy admitted to being a very willing sinner before Some Weird Sin got good and sleazy. He then brought things into the 21st century for a super speedy Frenzy that had him behind the wheel of a Trans Am.
Iggy used his stage prop of a coffin during a heavy rock version of Nightclubbing that was superfast compared to the original Iggy swung on the coffin door. Modern Day Rip off sounding like the band were all chewing amphetamines, it was super brisk Iggy spitting out the words at a mile a minute.
Then it was back to his time on Arista for I'm Bored well Iggy is still chairman of the bored, this classic got loads of people singing along again before he said goodnight. They didn't leave the stage as everyone was cheering they blasted through Real Wild Child with Iggy singing this 50's classic like it's his own song. He then closed the show with a punchy version of Funtime and I'm certain pretty much everyone in Ally pally had a Funtime with Iggy and his super-hot band, he took the ovation from the crowd and thanked us all before he went over to the Coffin and climbed in it, before closing the lid and being wheeled off stage with one hand waving out of the coffin at us, it was a surreal ending to a totally brilliant Iggy Pop gig, he's still one of the greatest live acts on earth.
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