Punk’s Patriarch: Iggy Pop Defies Expectations at The Anthem

What does Raw Power truly mean? The audience of The Anthem was schooled in the meaning of the phrase—the title of the Stooges’ third album that forever changed the trajectory of rock. Standing there, it was almost as if the venue was transported to the 1970s; a time when the sheer volume of noise was a true revelation, the intensity of the performance unseen and unfathomed before. Iggy Pop descended on the stage like an otherworldly creature, donning tight black jeans with only an open, leather vest on top, which he immediately threw off. Gnarled and weathered, yes, but aged and weakened? Absolutely not. Pop is like a live-wire drawing current from every scream, whoop, and head-bang of the crowd. The pentagenarian punks were close to a riot themselves, a mosh pit perhaps on everyone’s minds if not on the floor. 

Iggy Pop traversed all eras of his long and storied career, from the Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” to many samplings from Lust For Life (including the album’s namesake), to “Modern Day Ripoff” from his most recent album, Every Loser (2023). Accompanying Pop on stage were the usual suspects of a punk show—two guitarists, a bassist, keyboardist, a searing drummer—and the more unusual inclusion of someone on trombone and another on trumpet, reminding the audience that this is not just your dad’s punk show. Bringing his more recent forays into a jazzy sound alongside the typical explosive guitar riffs and drum solos, Iggy Pop has cemented himself as not just a relic of a past age or a self-aggrandizing nostalgia trip for Gen-Xers with disposable income; he is still as much an artist as he was fifty years ago, always restless, constantly evolving, unable to pin down, in life or on stage. At seventy-eight years of age, he could easily be retiring in one of his no doubt many houses, living off royalty checks and sycophantic praise. And yet, as he reaches his hands out to the crowd, standing in his iconic pose, one hip forever popped, it is clear he is here not because of money nor praise nor ego. “I never got my license to live…So I stand at the world’s edge” he sang, tipping into the crowd. This is his license to live. And we are all thankful for it. 

---

Ariana Hameed is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, double majoring in American Studies and Computer Science, Ethics, and Society.