Iggy Pop Back in Detroit.
Iggy Pop at Comerica Park in Detroit, Michigan. All photos by Paul Holstein.
An estimated 35,000 people attended the My Chemical Romance/Iggy Pop show on Saturday night at Comerica Park (the Detroit Tigers baseball stadium). There were reports that it was his largest Detroit crowd ever, but that's misleading considering Iggy played to crowds nearly triple that at The Silverdome (not technically in Detroit, but right outside) back in 1981 with The Rolling Stones (at only 34 years old). It did top his headlining Cobo Arena appearances on the "Lust For Life" Tour and more amazingly represents nearly 60 years of Detroit shows beginning in the local clubs (with his band The Stooges). As of today, Iggy Pop is 79 years old but appears to be still in his prime.
I am a die-hard punk, and being completely honest, I had never even heard My Chemical Romance before their first song at this show (although I did end up really enjoying it, but I'll get to that). Iggy Pop, on the other hand, is a legend. Many will make the case that he was either the first true punk rocker or, at the very least, inspired what would become punk rock. He has always played stripped-down, aggressive rock music, but his confrontational attitude was the true inspiration. In the 1970s, Iggy would sometimes roll around in broken glass and play covered in blood, stage-dive and otherwise taunt the audience, and smear food, mud, peanut butter, and other substances on himself. He was physical and dangerous, and the shows were deliberately uncomfortable. That sounds punk rock to me.
Iggy Pop at Comerica Park in Detroit, Michigan. All photos by Paul Holstein.
This was Iggy Pop's first show in Detroit in nearly 10 years (the last shows being at The Fox Theatre and The Majestic Theatre in 2016), even though he is from the area. That doesn't appear to have been deliberate, as he played dozens of shows over that period. This was the first Detroit booking that fit his schedule, and it was a fitting homecoming. For the Comerica Park performance, the band was Iggy Pop & Los Tropicanos, with Iggy Pop (vocals), Nick Zinner of Yeah Yeah Yeahs (guitar), Ale Campos of Las Nubes (guitar), Brad Truax (bass), Urian Hackney (drums), Joan Wasser (keyboards), Corey D. King (trombone), and Pan Amsterdam (trumpet). Notably, Urian Hackney is the son of Bobby Hackney Sr., bassist/vocalist for Death, the legendary proto-punk band from Detroit. When arguments are made as to which was the very first punk rock band, Death frequently comes up in addition to Iggy Pop. In 1975, a full year before The Sex Pistols and The Ramones’ albums, Death was recording songs like "Politicians in My Eyes".
I normally photograph bar shows, with the occasional festival (Punk Rock Bowling, Punk In The Park, and Brakrock most recently), so this show was different. My sister and my niece ended up having tickets, so I came down with them (we live in the suburbs). The show was originally scheduled to be earlier, but they had recently pushed back the times (we never did find out why), so that Iggy Pop was playing from 8:00 to 8:45 and then My Chemical Romance from 9:00 to whenever. I had to be at the side entrance under the bridge that connects the Tigers' garage to the stadium at 7:30, so we parked and then split up. They let me in a side door, put my camera bag through an X-ray scanner and sent me through a full security screening checkpoint. After that, though, someone was waiting for me and was expecting me by name. It turned out that there were only 6 photographers total for Iggy Pop, and they all appeared to be professionals (I later learned that they included Comerica Park, The Detroit Free Press, The Detroit News, and local radio station 106.7 WLLZ). They led us to the Comerica Park press box, where stacks of pizzas (including vegetarian that I could actually eat) and soda were waiting, and we were able to socialize until the show was about to start. We were then led down (through the crowd) to the stage and given two spots to stand (either side of the stage, no one in the middle). There was still a good 10 minutes to go, which I used to talk to (and photograph) some of the people that were on the rail. Everyone that I talked to was a My Chemical Romance superfan, from a much younger generation than my own, but they were also excited to find out what Iggy Pop was all about.
Iggy, born James Newell Osterberg Jr., is originally from the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area of Michigan, so this is his hometown. He started out as a drummer in his first band, The Iguanas, which was the source of the nickname Iggy. It would take a book to chronicle his rise from there to being one of the most influential frontmen in music history, so I'll skip ahead to the band taking the stage and ripping into their first three songs, "T.V. Eye", "Raw Power" and "I Got A Right". The crowd went wild, and it was a whirlwind to try to follow him and grab some photos while I had the chance. He took the stage with a vest on, but within 10 seconds he was shirtless and remained so for the rest of the show. As is normal with a show of this size, we were allowed to take photos for the first three songs and then were escorted out of the building. It took me just under 16 minutes to run my camera back to the car, go through the line, and get back into the venue for the end of Iggy's set. It was an 11-song set, and I only missed a couple, making the photos very much worth the effort. Iggy ended up coming down to the rail and singing directly to the fans in the front during "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and finished with the songs "1970" and "1969". To be honest, if I had been going it alone, I would have called it a night after that (and been fully satisfied).
Iggy Pop at Comerica Park in Detroit, Michigan. All photos by Paul Holstein.
I'm glad that I stayed, as My Chemical Romance put on a great show, and I fully plan to give their "The Black Parade" a proper listen as soon as I get the chance. The rest of my family had fun as well, and my niece Angelina (who was also a guest photographer for my previous story for In-Spite Magazine about Total Chaos and Noogy) took a few photos with her phone (without my digital camera, I took none). The venue is outdoors, and although we got a light rain during the show (which actually felt good), we avoided the downpour that came just after we got back to our car and started to make our way out of the city. It had been a great start to the weekend, which would see me back the next day for the Detroit Lions playing the Washington Commanders (their preseason home opener) next door at Ford Field, where I walked by them still disassembling the stage and loading it onto trucks to head to the next city on the list.
My Chemical Romance at Comerica Park in Detroit, Michigan. Photo by Angelina Tersigni.
