With all the speculation surrounding the Iggy And The Stooges show in San Jose at the first ever Creative Convergence Silicon Valley Festival being their last show on the world tour therefore possibly being their last show ever it was easy to go into their set as if we were witnessing a museum piece. But ten minutes into the concert it was clear this was about a band still pushing itself to rock like they are trying out for a record deal.
Opening with Raw Power from 1973 Iggy Pop took over the stage with a command rarely seen by front men one-third his age. Pop, 66, did not mail in any part of his show. He stalked the stage, always in epileptic motion, contorting to the music, rolling on stage and jumping into the crowd on multiple occasions. Perhaps the most amazing thing about Iggy Pop in 2013 is how good his voice sounds. Deep, clear, not raspy in the least. How he kept in such shape after decades of punk metal screeching in unclear to us; But he was top notch.
The band, though not the original stooges were also at the top of their game. Loud, abrasive, yet tight and with a great sense of intuition with each other. It's hard to imaging this band ever sounded better than tonight. As the set wore on, it was clearly a revelation how they had the hard rock template perfected 40 years ago.
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At the 45 minute mark in the set the Stooges launched into No Fun, the song the Sex Pistols famously used to end their career in San Francisco, and one had the feeling that this would be how the Stooges would also come to a close. No Chance. Iggy led the band through another 45 minutes of pure rock fury. Search and Destroy showed how it laid the foundation for Metallica's Seek and Destroy. I Got A Right was a short punchy sing along with Iggy going so crazy on stage it looked as if he might hurt himself.
When they got to the encore and played two new songs all thought of the Stooges ending tonight went out the window. They are not ready to give up. And a lot of today's shoe gazers could learn a lot from these elder statesmen of rock.
