At the end of “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” the loudest song in on a night full of them, Iggy Pop stared out at the cheering crowd in downtown Los Angeles and shared the seize-the-day philosophy that fuels his rock ‘n roll life night after night.
“I know I’m gonna die,” the rock icon who turned 76 on Friday, April 21, told fans at the Orpheum Theatre on Monday. “But I don’t want to die every day.
Iggy had other plans: “I want to stir up your (bleepin’) soul, and your body, too.”
With that, the Losers, his touring band that includes drummer Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and bassist Duff McKagan of Guns N’ Roses, launched into “Louie Louie,” a song nearly as old and unkillable as Iggy himself.
That’s where the night ended on this second of three Los Angeles concerts by Iggy Pop & the Losers this month. He’ll be back in May as co-headliner of the Cruel World festival in Pasadena.
The show opened 80 minutes earlier with a trio of songs off “Every Loser,” Iggy’s 19th studio album, starting with “The News For Andy,” a brief spoken-word track inspired by Andy Warhol’s off-hand suggestion that Iggy should just read the newspaper out loud as lyrics during the recording of The Stooges’ 1970 “Funhouse” album.
“Neo Punk,” a send-up of the exploitation of punk by fashion and commerce, and “Frenzy,” a raw roar of rock that was the first single off the album.
That record, released in January, isn’t exactly a return to form for Iggy – I say that as a fan who finds greatness in different measures in each of his releases – but it feels like classic Iggy, something he’s previously confirmed in talking of how he and producer Andrew Watt set out to make “a record together the old-fashioned way.”
Add to that a band that grew up adoring Iggy Pop with and without the Stooges, many of them taken under his wing when they were still young players, and the ingredients were all in place to make to make what Iggy described last fall as music that “will beat the (bleep) out of you.”
Which, honestly, it really did at the Orpheum on Monday as new songs and old hits – early on, we got Stooges’ favorites such as “Raw Power” and “T.V. Eye” – left me feeling pummeled, in a good way, thanks to the power of the players on stage.
In addition to Smith and McKagan, Iggy’s band includes his producer Watt on guitar, as well as Jamie Hince, guitarist in the Kills. No disrespect to Josh Homme and the band he assembled as producer and bandleader for 2016’s “Post Pop Depression” – a very good outfit indeed – but the Losers captured a rawness that approached Stooge-ian levels of mayhem on stage.
And Iggy, of course, was his delightfully Iggy self throughout the 18-song set whether he was expressing thanks to the crowd in his profane, happy-go-lucky way or sharing a story or stage with the crowd at times.
“Hey, I’ve been in a few jails around here,” he announced after “Strung Out Johnny,” my favorite of the six new songs in the set. “Beverly Hills. Van Nuys. County for five days. So knowing that about me, would you pick me up?”
That served as his intro to “The Passenger,” one of the highlights of the night with its rolling melody and rhythms, the crowd singing the la-la-la chorus with and without Iggy as it went. The fan favorite “Lust For Life,” the title track written by David Bowie for the 1977 album he also produced followed, with Iggy encouraging 30 or 40 fans to join him on stage for it.
“Now that’s entertainment!” Iggy said as security shooed the crowd back to their seats at the finish. “Hey, hey, Iggy Pop and the Losers try harder; yes, we do.”
“Nightclubbing,” a song many also know for its Grace Jones cover, and the Stooges’ “Search and Destroy” wrapped up the main set, the latter a raw blast of power from Watt, McKagan and Smith, the latter of which pounded the drums so hard throughout the night he seemed to break multiple sticks each song.
A very brief break brought Iggy and the band back to the stage to play Lou Reed’s “Walk On The Wild Side,” before “I Wanna Be Your Dog” and “Louie Louie” wrapped it all up.
An earlier moment, during the new song “Comments,” stuck with me as I left. “The problem with life is that it stops,” Iggy said with a shrug during a spoken-word break in the tune.
On Monday, though, and on Thursday at the Palladium in Hollywood, and next month at Cruel World, life goes on. Don’t miss it.
