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Midnight at the Old Waldorf. Send your camel to bed. There's no room for it here, because the proprietor has greedily sold plenty of tickets over the joint's practical capacity. This isn't the first time, either.
With the advent of new blood in rock 'n' roll, the Old Waldorf has become a pivotal local showcase for developing artists. Record companies are attracted to the facility. It's an intimate venue and liquor is served. Thanks to a sterile, functional decor, the place feels like a cafeteria. Bland surroundings that make the worst of entertainers more interesting by comparison. When the best rising acts are booked (Tom Petty, Mink DeVille, AC/DC, etc.), it isn't unusual to find a surplus of eager patrons willing to be crammed together beyond comfort and capacity for the show.
Ravel's Bolero unfurls over the Waldorf PA system. Three hours have elapsed since the first of two opening acts attempted to placate Iggy Pop's adoring sardines. The crowd is hot and restless. They've endured to witness the spectacle. Bystanders waiting for an accident.
Most of them never saw the outcast in his heyday. Iggy Stooge, born James Osterberg, shredding his chest with broken glass. Or drooling and thrashing around on stage. Or humping some ghoul-friend in the audience to a brutal James Williamson guitar solo. He's a Stooge no longer, but the sardines don't care. They're ready for action and the reborn Iggy Pop, punk antecedent and elder statesman. Bolero is stoking the flame.
"Where are you, goddammit? Iggy!!" "We love you, Jimmy, you muthah-fuck-ah!" Shouts of "Bring on the Idiot!" Tension like at a bullfight before the matadors are introduced. (That effect courtesy of Ravel.) Suddenly, the music crashes to a close.
From the darkness, a voice growls, "Is anybody bombed out there?" The band chums up, the spotlight stabs a moving figure and the Ig appears; bull, not matador. He has a black plume for a tail, trailing him while he pirouettes. He sings songs from his two latest RCA albums, The Idiot and Lust For Life, both produced and co-written by David Bowie, Iggy's friend and recent collaborator. The repertoire touches on past dementia, from "Raw Power" to the encore, "I Wanna Be Your Dog." No bull. Loud, gut-wrenching rock.
Bowie isn't present on this tour and the band, with the Sales Brothers on bass and drums (plus a couple of other nondescript sidemen), isn't as sharp as on record. It's down to Iggy and he comes through like a champ. Regretfully for the gore-lusting voyeurs, he doesn't take any risks, in contrast to the Stooge of yore.
Leaning forward, cajoling, taunting, Iggy works the room with professional ease. Between songs, he whispers to a lad at ringside who has a bandaged nose. They laugh. Iggy removes his shirt in order to strut bare-chested across the stage. During "Lust For Life," which could be his answer to the Supremes' "You Can't Hurry Love," he collapses on the floor, rolling and groaning; a satyr in heat.
Wearing an army helmet for "Fall In Love With Me," he becomes the drunken soldier-of-fortune on leave. He breaks apart a chair and sticks his head through the remains. Into the stocks as punishment. The roadies drag him on stage in a bag and he kicks his way out. Totally drained, Iggy chews on the microphone cord and intones the lyrics to "Nightclubbing" in German. He's a lost little boy, then a robot and, concluding the set with "Raw Power," an utter maniac.
Earning an encore, the sardines pound on tables and clap 'til their fins hurt. "I Wanna Be Your Dog" is all that the title implies. Animal magnetism, but no antics beyond the garden-variety punkoid schtick employed by the Dead Boys'dynamic neo-Stooge, Stiv Bators. When their supplicant disappears undamaged, the disappointed mob disperses, leaving spilled drinks and overturned seats in their wake. A living legend shouldn't keep his admirers waiting for three hours, unless he's able to live up to his legend
Exactly four nights later, I'm back at the Waldorf. This time, the occasion is the initial American gig for a guy who can honestly call himself the next Elvis. Really. Elvis Costello is one of the pop singers who emerged last year from the Stiff Records stable. He made his debut on The Stiff Sampler, a British import from the small independent label that also featured cuts by Nick Lowe, the Tyla Gang, Graham Parker & the Rumour, Dave Edmunds and Wreckless Eric. Currently, Elvis is signed to Columbia Records in the U.S., and his first Stiff album has just been released in this country.
My Aim Is True tracks the same on Columbia as it did on Stiff, except for the addition of a sneering reggae-styled tune, "Watching The Detectives." Playing guitar in front of the Attractions, a three-piece group that includes unknowns Steve Mason on keyboards, Bruce Thomas on bass and Pete Thomas on drums, Elvis performs most of the songs from the album and quite a few potent numbers that have not been recorded. The Attractions re-
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