Next up on the rock and roll itinerary was the extreme polar opposite to the Pink Floyd arena spectacle known as “ The Wall”. Iggy Pop, famously of the Stooges, played the cozy confines of My Father’s Place in Roslyn with its table seating in stark contrast to having seen Pink Floyd at the Nassau Coliseum. A group of us occupied a long table facing the left of the stage and when the explosive bundle of energy known as Iggy Pop hit the stage we had a great view dangerously close to the action. I say “ dangerously close” because Iggy Pop was the real deal with a violent no frills stage persona who would even roll over broken glass with no shirt on to incite a reaction from the audience. Iggy was singing a song with his band when Mike’s friend Doug decided it would be a good idea o give Mr. Pop the middle finger. Now under ordinary concert circumstances this would not seem to be a big deal, except we were close enough to the stage that Doug caught Iggy Pop’s attention. And it was not a quick flip of the bird; it was table seating and Doug was standing for what seemed like a long time while Iggy stared him down with the middle finger seemingly a mere few inches from Pop’s nose. Some of us tried to tell Doug to knock it off but he insisted that Iggy “liked it”. From the look on Iggy’s face he did not appear to enjoy the exchange as much as Doug thought he would, to the point that I began to think it was not improbable with Pop’s well documented somewhat erratic performance behavior that he could leap off the stage onto our table and begin to beat the crap out of his newfound nemesis. Why it did not end that way is still a bit of a mystery but Pop performed through the audience member’s seeming disrespect, heightened emotions, antagonism and somehow through all this all ended well for us and Mr. Pop.

Lust for Life

Rock on!

GQ