2008: Truths and Recollections

It is appropriate that as I write this I am recovering from the worst bout of the flu I think I've ever experienced. I say this because I haven't felt this awful, or lost so many body fluids since having seen Iggy & the Stooges perform this summer at Montreal's Osheaga Festival. 

As any festival goer knows pace is the trick. Having entered the festival grounds a good six hours before Iggy & the Stooges took to the stage meant a couple of hours of soaking up too much sun with friends, seeing some great bands and of course the suds. Nothing says "I'll regret this tomorrow," like a steady flow of cheap festival beer that has spent the better part of the day in the August sun. 

By the time Iggy & the Stooges walked out on stage I was in what could only be described as the perfect state to see this legendary firestorm of a band perform. Inhibitions having been diluted till they were all but gone had me screaming at the top of my lungs and fists pumping. Although the set list is a bit of a haze, I do remember it revolving mostly around songs from the  album Fun House (1970) and the seminal punk rock blue print The Stooges (1969). To say that Iggy Pop and Co. delivered a sonic Molotov cocktail thrown in the face of all who were there is an understatement. While Ron Ashton's riffs brought to life those bedroom air guitar fantasies, brother Scott on drums and auxiliary member Mike Watt on bass (of The Minutemen fame), kept the songs chugging along at breakneck speed. Iggy not only performed... he danced shimmied and contorted his body onstage like a young man a third his age. With every twitch and vein pumping scream, you could not help but notice that Iggy was sweating pure Rock and Roll. As I watched Iggy climb the equipment and eventually hump the monitors , I could not stop thinking that here is a man roughly my fathers age, shirtless and poised to attack like some sort of punk rock predator looking for his next conquest. Eventually Iggy invited whoever wanted to join him onstage...resulting in a mob of hugs and cell phone camera flashes, transforming the front man into a modern day Pied Piper of sorts. Iggy probably could have led them into the St.Lawrence river and they would have followed.

Upon returning home I spent the better part of the night throwing up and sitting on the can simultaneously (thank god for tiny Plateau bathrooms). Was it hours in the hot August sun? Too many skanky beers and over priced shitty hot dogs? No. Ultimately , I believe The Stooges shook me like a rag doll and then sent me home to lose bodily control.

  Rock 'n Roll has lost one of it's punk rock innovators with Ron Asheton's passing this January 6 2009, I feel very privileged to have witnessed such an awesome spectacle.