Iggy Pop marked his 60th birthday on Saturday just like any other respectable senior citizen would.
The eerily athletic "Godfather of Punk" stripped down to a tight pair of blue jeans and dived off the stage into the arms of his adoring fans during a concert in San Francisco with his reunited band the Stooges.
Towards the end of the 80-minute show, the crowd at the Warfield theater sang along as his bandmates struck up "
Happy Birthday," and
Pop was surprised as balloons bearing his image dropped from the ceiling.
A fan also handed him a white T-shirt inscribed "Birthday Boy Iggy," which the singer proudly displayed to his unimpressed bandmates.
Pop, whose real name is Jim Osterberg, seemed thrilled by all the attention, but did not dwell too much on the special occasion. He muttered a few thanks along the way before resuming his usual routine: manic singing and dancing, spitting into the crowd, scampering onto the speakers and throwing his microphone stand around the stage.
Pop is back on tour with the Stooges, the band with which he first made a splash in the late 1960s. Their enthusiastic garage rock, a dissonant distillation of Chicago blues and British Invasion rock, helped pave the way for punk rock bands like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols.
The Stooges self-destructed in 1974 after releasing three albums whose influence was not reflected by their meager sales. Pop ended up penniless in the gutters of the Sunset Strip, and checked into a psychiatric hospital. He launched a comeback in 1977 with the help of David Bowie, with whom he co-wrote such tunes as "Lust For Life" and "China Girl."
Thanks for the info to Reuters.
