Holiday on the Moon

I have so much to tell you about Vegas, but I'm afraid that has to wait a little longer because Friday night I went to see The Stooges. They're touring supporting their new album, The Weirdness, which grows on you after a few listenings, even though it got panned by the critics. Who pays attention to critics anyway?

I bought the tickets not knowing who was going to go with me, but knew this was a concert I did not want to miss. I saw their first concert in Detroit in over 30 back in 2003 (it was originally scheduled for the night of the Great Blackout which you can enjoy for yourself on the DVD which I, of course, own) and was so overwhelmed by it that when Iggy showed up on stage bare-chested and in skintight jeans barely hanging on for dear life (the jeans, not Iggy) that I started to cry. I was a little embarrassed by the emotion until my good friend Glen said, "Kathleen, there were 50-year-old men in the audience that night who cried." I was able to hold on to my emotions this time and when Iggy took the stage looking just like he did that hot August night 3.5 years ago, I simply screamed like any other insane fan. In fact, however many days later, my throat is still a tad sore from all the screaming I did that night.

The whole night was incredibly fabulous! I begged my friend Miss Anne to go with me as The Libertarian's view of The Stooges' music was that it wasn't music and why on earth did it ever get made. Whatever. Miss Anne really wanted to go, so she was excited that I had a ticket and was willing to wait until whenever for her to pay me for the ticket. I told her I didn't care if she paid me $5 a month, I wanted to go with someone who wanted to go. She showed up at my house and I laughed. We had both chosen our 3-D Reunion shirt (mine was a tank top, hers a T-shirt), but I wasn't going to change, so we went looking like twins and didn't care! In fact, we got both got stopped by people saying, "Hey, I used to go to 3-D. It was a cool place."

We were supposed to meet friends of ours who were driving in from Chicago (they also had tickets to the Sunday Stooges' show in Chicago) at the Town Pump but they were running late and it was crowded, loud and very smoky, so we told them we'd just meet them at the Fox. We ended up talking to this guy outside the Town Pump and it turned out that he was driving home from work and saw the marquee and stopped and bought himself a ticket (only single seat tickets were available). He was cool and alone, so he asked if he could hang with us. We're friendly folk, so we said No problem. As you can probably imagine, there was great people watching in the lobby of the Fox with all the old punks. There were a good number of Grande Ballroom t-shirts being worn. In fact, our friend from Chicago showed up in hers, but she saw us, she said, "I almost wore my 3-D t-shirt, too." Great minds think alike!

I bought two extremely over-priced T-shirts, but they were so cool, I had to! It was so nice being around old punks, I just feel so at home with them - people who listen to the same music I do and don't think I'm weird for it. I saw a guy in a leather jacket with this picture of Ian Curtis painted on the back, the same picture I have of Ian painted on the back of my jean jacket. I would have, of course, talked to him, except that I was in line buying my t-shirts and wasn't about to lose my place in the mob. I was as excited as a little kid at Disneyland being there. After I bought my T-shirts, I had to tell Miss Anne and our new friend Pete all about the Joy Division jacket. Our new friend Pete then pulled out his phone to display the song Transmission as his ringtone. If you know me, you know that had me freaking out just a bit. He told me where he got it and that I could get Atmosphere (my all time favorite Joy Division song) as well. You know I'm doing that! Good-bye Funeral March of a Marionette (aka the Hitchcock theme), Hello Joy Division!

We missed the opening act, Powertrane, as people watching seemed like a better option as nobody had heard of the band. With my luck, they'll go on to be the next big band I've never heard of and I'll be kicking myself that I missed the chance to see them. But I didn't care, I was having fun talking to my friends. The Chicago friends are also race fans, so they asked about Vegas and I told them how cool it was (oh yeah, I'll tell you all about it after I download my pictures) and they think they might join the fun next year. After that it was time to head to our seats. Chicago friends and our new friend Pete had main floor, but Miss Anne and I had balcony (I prefer balcony, generally, unless, of course, I have seats in the first four rows or something close). I had my binoculars so we were all set.

I saw a guy from work (which was a bit of a surprise as this place kind of defines "conservative") and yelled his name. He was as surprised as me to see someone from work, but he smiled and waved.

The Stooges came out with zero fanfare. All of a sudden, there they were and Iggy was singing Loose (supposedly they did Down on the Street next, but I missed it somehow which is strange since I know that song really well). The third song of the night was "I Wanna Be Your Dog" which had everybody on their feet. And that was the last time 99% of the crowd sat down which is saying something when you think that the average age of the crowd was close to 50. The Freep (the Detroit Free Press, as it's more commonly known) had TWO reviews of the show in Saturday's paper. Iggy, who turns 60 on Saturday, stage dived (dove?) during I Wanna Be Your Dog which shows a lot of faith in his aging fans, I think. During Real Cool Time, fans swarmed the stage and at the end the lead fan yelled "Iggy and the Stooges! Iggy and the fucking Stooges! Iggy and the fucking Stooges!" into the mike. I turned to Miss Anne and said, "That sounded EXACTLY like the guy who did that during the Pine Knob concert (oh yeah, we're not allowed to call it Pine Knob anymore, it's the DTE Energy Concert Center, or some such corporate bullshit)." I mentioned it to Chicago friend and she totally agreed with me, as did the Freep's reviews. I didn't think that the fans being on stage seemed staged, although it's not unexpected as Iggy kind of encourages it. He is smart in that he has a guy guarding him from all the insane fans while he dances and writhes his way across the stage while singing.

I haven't quite figured out how Iggy keeps his jeans on as he wears them really low-slung but he managed it that night. The guy in front of us mentioned after the concert that he was at a concert where Iggy was not so successful in keeping his pants on. As much as I love Iggy, I'm not sure I need to see that. I was at a concert of The Cramps where Lux Interior got a little overzealous with his broken wine bottle (he broke it himself after he was done drinking from it) and slit his black spandex pants ALL THE WAY up which I'm pretty sure he didn't mean. Anyway, as I like to say, "I saw way more of Lux Interior that night than I really needed to."

I'm never ever happy with the length of a concert, so I was a little disappointed when the house lights came on, even if they were expected. If The Stooges are coming to your town, I highly recommended getting tickets to the concert. They put on a GREAT live show. And it's a little like experiencing living music history. I kind of wish I had written this on Saturday when I was still higher than a kite from the energy and emotion of the night, as I don't think my enthusiasm for that night as come out in my writing.

As the long-haired fan screamed, "IGGY AND THE FUCKING STOOGES!!!"