Atlantic City Weekly

The "Godfather of Punk," Iggy Pop, and his current reunion with the Stooges makes for one of the hardest rocking concert tours in years.

Pure energy, retro-rock and "Raw Power," was what was emanating from the Music Hall at the House of Blues at Showboat Friday night, Aug. 23, in Atlantic City.

Just before 9pm, and with James Brown's 1963 Live at the Appollo album blasting loudly on the Music Hall speakers, a large audience waited inside the dark concert venue with anticipation.

See photo gallery from this concert here.

"Try Me," "Night Train" and other cuts from the '63 soul classic blared throughout the hall, filling up the big room with some of the funkiest and soulful music ever recorded. Pop fans of all ages began to fill the floor, pushing right up to the gate below the stage behind which a couple photographers were readying their devices.

Tension mounted as the audience awaited for the entrance of the reunited Stooges — a reunion that touched off originally for the first time in nearly 30 years for the 2003 recording of Pop's Skull Ring album, and that has survived the 2009 death of founding member Ron Asheton, just a year before the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after being snubbed for nearly a decade.

A little past nine, the lights were dimmed down to darkness and Pop and his 40-year-old rock band from Michigan took the stage.
Pop, 63, pranced and moved around the stage all night, appearing fit and full of energy, as the tight quartet of the latest incarnation of the Stooges backed him up on guitar (James Williamson), drums (Scott Asheton), bass (Mike Watt) and saxophone (Steve Mackay).

Although sax man Mackay and Asheton were the only two of the above ensemble who appeared on the Stooges' first two albums — its eponymous and influential 1969 debut and 1970's psychotic Fun House —  the band provided the perfect sonic backdrop for the transcendent Pop, who belted out songs primarily from the first few years of his 40-plus-year career, including early Stooges songs like "I Wanna Be Your Dog," "No Fun," "Fun House" and "1970," and a plethora of material from his and the Stooges 1973 "comeback" album Raw Power, including the classic songs "Gimme Danger," "Search & Destroy" and the title track, as well as "Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell," I Need Somebody," "Death Trip" and the frenetic, Raw Power-period song "I Got a Right."

Pop made himself comfortable early on. He removed his vest during the first song, and roamed around the stage, bare-chested, knocking down mike stands, swilling water, spitting it out and tossing the still-somewhat-full water bottles into the crowd, for the rest of show.

Pop occasionally snuck offstage for a break from the stage, but never for long, and he was committed to delivering a top-tier performance.

Known to many as the inventor of the stage dive, Pop gave those in the first few rows only a few chances to be a part of his backward descents into the crowd. He did, however, invite about 40 people from the crowd up to the stage to dance during the Raw Power classic "Shake Appeal."

The place went nuts.

Williamson and company sounded awesome the entire night. Their psychedelic, thrashing, bluesy, and pre-punk-movement, groove-heavy sound conjuring up the sounds of Iggy and the Stooges in their prime.

Pop,  shirtless for nearly the entire evening and looking like a stand-in for Red Hot Chili Pepper Anthony Kiedis' older brother, gave each song its deserved attention, all while pacing back and forth, kicking mike stands all over the stage, jumping around, doing karate moves and occasionally jumping into the sea of arms and hands at his feet.

The band exited the stage after a tight, fast-paced hour set. It then returned to play three encores, including the Stooges-era composition "Johanna," which first appeared on Pop's post-Stooges period debut, Kill City, in 1977.

By the show's close; after a water-tight, wild and raucous hour-and-a-half performance, the fierce and fiery sounds of the Stooges gave way to the return of James Brown and the Flames on the room's big speakers.

Walking out of the Music Hall, the lights turned back on, two fans talked about how cool it was that Iggy Pop had chosen James Brown's Live at the Appollo album to play before and after the concert— and wondered if in fact he did.

"Either way, that's better than any opening band," one said to the other, while the two went on to compare Pop's colorful and powerful stage show with that of the late Brown's.