Album Review- Iggy Pop- Live at Montreux, Jazz Festival 2023

A friend gave me his copy of “Metallic KO” the famous 1976 Iggy and the Stooges live record that was allegedly from their final concert (Side 2 is from that final 1974 concert. Listeners would years later find out Side 1 was actually from a separate 1973 show) I found it then (and still now as) the most captivating live punk album of all time. 

Of course, it seems like almost every Stooges live performance seemed to find its way to disc. Iggy, like his fellow punk godfather Lou Reed, is almost as defined by his live albums as his studio work. There’s plenty of the Stooges stuff (up to 2005s much loved Stooges reunion album Telluric Chaos). Although not official releases, I would run into (and repeatedly bought on CD and vinyl) the concerts from the Ritz in New York 1986 and The Channel in Boston 1988, both seeing mass distribution starting in 1995. 

Corresponding to albums that have since fallen off the radar -86s Blah Blah Blah and 88s Instinct- freed from slick production from David Bowie on the former and Bill Laswell on the latter, the songs are rough as the classic pre punk songs they sit by on the setlist. I won’t go into a deep dive of other Iggy live releases which are so numerous that I am surprised that Discogs and Allmusic can keep up, and nearly all eras and years can be found. 

I will say I do particularly love the songs off of the 1977 tour with Bowie (like the Agora Ballroom in Cleveland show in March of that year) which were finally given the cleaned up treatment in 2020. I also saw Pop in the 90s and still consider it one of the best concerts I have ever seen. That said, it certainly felt like he was at least 60 years old then- the godfather of Punk. But he was younger then than this writer is now. He was in his late 40s but still had the energy of someone half that age. 

We probably don’t need a new live Iggy album but “Live At Montreux Festival 2023” comes out to rave reviews and it’s a nice addition to the catalog. Iggy is backed by guitars, bass, drums, trumpet and trombone. He hits an expected Stooges heavy playlist with nods to the Berlin period (“Mass Production” from The Idiot being a nice representative of that time) and the most recent album. (“Frenzy” and “Modern Day Ripoff” may be even dumber than songs like “Tuff Baby” and “Squarehead” from that Instinct-era setlist but it doesn’t matter when it’s all about aggression and energy. 

 The brass instruments on Search and Destroy does give some “Iggy in Vegas” vibes but nothing can tame that song, and more often than not it gives a nice Fun House vibe on songs like “Loose” or augments the proto-industrial sound of “Mass Production” Artists evolve over the ensuing years but it’s hard to believe Iggy ever did. On “I Wanna Be Your Dog”, as tensions increase, Iggy baits the crowd with as much intensity as he did when he was a Stooge. This is without the question, the same guy from Metallic KO from over 50 years back. 

I also don’t want to discount that “Iggy in Vegas” would be a bad thing. There’s never really a chance to reel him back in. This is the perfect Compact Disc length setlist. There’s a nice mix of Stooges, Berlin era and Solo songs. Where do you even cut? I mean I love American Caesar and Post Pop Depression which get no tracks here. To be honest neither do popular moments like Brock by Brick or anything from 1980 on that isn’t the new album. That said, it’s nice to see the underappreciated New Values get its two songs and you surely can’t cut out stompers like Gimme Danger. 

At this point, fans probably have as many Iggy albums as they need. This one is a pretty great “career capper” though that is worth the price of admission.