Iggy Pop - TV Eye Live 1977, Iggy & Ziggy Cleveland ‘77

Having been a huge Iggy & the Stooges fan for years, when the initial live TV Eye came out in 1977/1978, of course I had to buy it. Unfortunately, it was just ok – the sound quality is iffy throughout and the performances were not the best – sloppy, muddy and unbalanced, even for the material.

That said, it was still an interesting artifact of the time, with David Bowie sitting in (on some of the songs – the 8 songs on the album are compiled from three different gigs, 2 of them without Bowie) on keyboards, giving a cool texture to the show. Iggy pulled off some cool Stooges numbers, including the then-recent Bomp single, “I Got a Right”, one of his most phenomenal numbers.

The new Iggy & Ziggy CD has the entire March 21^st Cleveland show (with Bowie on the whole gig), showcasing many more Stooges tunes as well as a few more of his solo songs. There are numbers from each of the 3 Stooges records - in fact, many more of these than of his later material. While nothing is improved upon, it is fascinating to see what he was doing with the tunes at the time when so many punk bands were covering these, most notably the Sex Pistols take on “No Fun”.

The sound on the new CD is considerably better than the original album – either due to new technology or simply more time spent on the production. So while there are different songs of both, I would recommend the new Iggy & Ziggy over the original TV Eye, but naturally, complete-ists will need both.

Iggy & Ziggy line up:
Raw Power
Turn Blue
Sister Midnight
I Need Somebody
Search and Destroy
TV Eye
Dirt
Funtime
Gimme Danger
No Fun
I Wanna Be Your Dog

TV Eye line up:
TV Eye
Funtime
Sixteen
I Got a Right
Lust for Life
Dirt
Nightclubbing
I Wanna Be Your Dog