Shows & Show Schedule

Side B of the first Stooges live album is, purportedly, one of the gnarliest rock shows ever recorded. For weeks before the February 1974 gig, Stooges frontman Iggy Pop had gleefully engaged in public beef with a motorcycle gang called the Scorpions. They showed up in droves, along with all kinds of objects with which to pelt the band — fruits and vegetables, bottles, yard tools. That hardly bothered Iggy, though — his band was hungry, close to broke, and at the end of their rope. Sloppy on purpose, discordant and gut-churningly raw, the entire set-list is a big screw-you, down to the song selection. The non-album tracks "Rich Bitch" and "Cock in My Pocket" lead into the most gleefully, barely competent cover of "Louie Louie." Here's how little the band fretted about charming at this point. In his book Gimme Danger: The Story of Iggy Pop, Joe Ambrose reports this bit of Pop stage patter from the night: "Hands up, who hates the Stooges? We don't hate you. We don't even care." Arielle Castillo