"We Accept You" (Iggy and the Stooges, United Palace Theatre, 4/09/07)

[photo courtesy of Brooklyn Vegan]

The Stooges - No Fun (mp3) (buy)

Okay.  So I'm ON THE STAGE with IGGY GOD DAMN POP and the MOTHERFUCKING STOOGES.  No, SERIOUSLY.  Iggy ordered it.  "Get up here!"  He meant me.  And you.  He even said your name:  "Everybody!" he said. "GET UP HERE!"  What, you're not going to do what fucking Iggy Pop tells you to do?

The United Palace is this ridiculously ornate church-owned theater way up on 175th street.  Capacity's just shy of 3300.  It has seats - assigned seats, like we were bad or something - though I never found mine.  I got there late, the band was already on, "Down on the Street" was chugging out.  A lot of the seats at the back of the room were empty, the fronts of all the aisles were packed.  If they hadn't been, no one would have been there to catch Iggy when he ran and dove.  Or minutes later, when he just walked to the edge of the stage and flopped over.

Iggy Pop doesn't want you in your fucking seats!  Get out of your fucking seats!

Six or seven songs into the set, during "Real Cool Time," after security had semi-successfully cleared the center aisle... Iggy demanded dancers.  "Hey, can we?" quickly became "fuckyeahgogogo" and the security guys (that bearded guy from the Judson Arcade Fire shows was working this, too, and didn't look nearly as pleased) half-relented, were overwhelmed.  They must have known it was coming.  This is part of the plan.  I remember looking on from deep in the crowd at Randall's Island a couple years ago, wishing I could be one of the happy folks jumping around with the king of all madmen.  Fuck, yeah, gogogo.

There's a small ledge about a foot below the stage that makes it easy to hop up there.  And there were two stackable chairs, one on either side of the stage, that made convenient steps.  I don't know what else they could have been there for.  (Someone, later in the show, thought they were there to hurl at the performers.  Security expressed its severe displeasure all over that guy.)

I'm not sure how many people were up there.  How many does this look like to you?  How many does this look like?  There were that many.

[more coming]

tags: iggy pop  the stooges  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    reddit