The Stooges - Live at Goose Lake

 Despite the Stooges being one of my all-time favorite bands and Funhouse being in my all-time Top 5 records, I was a bit hesitant about buying this live CD due to the fact that their live gigs were - by intent - a bit chaotic and anarchistic, which meant for a terrific live experience, but not necessarily a great listening experience. Of course, some live recordings have been poor quality, as well. And to top it off, once I did get this, I read the liner notes which are almost exclusively Iggy talking about how terrible bassist Dave Alexander was on this gig - Ig fired him immediately afterwards - and what a disaster the gig was! Yeesh! But, despite all of that, this is actually pretty darn listenable. Yes, Alexander is wonky, and some of the songs literally simply fall apart, but there is some great energy and wild sounds abound!

Their set is essentially the Funhouse album, with the opening "Loose" being fairly sloppy and Iggy singing some of the "hot dog" lyrics rather than the final, album words. Despite some chaos, they move directly into "Down on the Street" and plough through that more successfully with Rock pummeling his drums and the Igster ad-libbing some lewd lyrics, and after a quick tune-up they rave on "T.V. Eye" maniacally, then more tuning followed by the menacing "Dirt", where Ron is smokin' and Rock does his best to hold things together but Dave definitely meanders where he shouldn't, unfortunately. 

They bring up Steve Mackay on sax for the finals numbers, starting with a truly insanely frantic "1970" that works well up until the ending simply disintegrates, but then there's their tour-de-force, the album's title cut, with Iggy imploring the audience to "let me in"! Mackay really wails here, as he does on the record, although this is even more crazed, acid-drenched anarchy than any recording studio could possibly contain! This segues directly into the noise-fest "LA Blues" that ends the set. The liner notes claims that the power was shut off, but it sounds to me just like they kinda fade out the jam and they even get a rousing cheer from the MC at the end.

So, yeah, it's an iffy proposition, but the sound quality is stellar even if the performance sometimes collapses on itself, and the energy is absolutely maniacal! As with anything like this, beginners should not start with this but fans will certainly want it!