Iggy & The Stooges

For years people have been talking about selling you a CD/DVD/Tape of the gig you have just enjoyed as you leave the venue and for years it has been little more than talk because the complexity of creating thousands of DVD/CD/Tape copies is murderous. Now though the wonderful guys at Simfy Live seem to have cracked it with a USB stick of the gig that was available to the punters who were lucky enough to see the gig at Hammy Odeon (sorry that’s Hammersmith Apollo). I wasn’t luckey enough but the stick is available separately and I HAVE been lucky enough to get my hands on one.

Now if you need to be told about the 'Raw Power’ album then you have been hiding under a rock for the last 35 years (!) but for the troglodytes among you it was the last album by the original incarnation of Iggy & The Stooges, produced in large part by David Bowie, and one of the rawest and most potent pieces of rock music ever recorded.
This recording was a celebration of the album and the first time it had been played in entirety ever and listening to this I am really sad that I missed the gig because you get the feeling that, musically at least, this is a band on top form and really kicking some serious ass. On the down side Iggy sounds all his 60+ years and at times his voice just sucks and he isn’t helped by a mix that takes his voice away from the mix. On the other hand when he is on song he sounds as awesome as he did when I first saw him in 1976.

The music is powerfully presented and the songs – 'Raw Power’, 'Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell’, 'Penetration’ – are as nasty and as dark and deranged as they ever were, just the way they should be.

This is a brave concept and I for one applaud Simfy for a great concept well executed. There are going to be a lot more of these coming out in the next few months and years – this one is a cracker.

You can order the concert as an MP3 download or on USB stick in collector’s box from www.simfylive.com/iggypop