O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : Iggy Pop Puts Blood, Sweat Into His Act

Iggy Pop bled a little and sweated a lot Saturday night at UC Irvine’s Crawford Hall. That spillage of bodily fluids helped him back up one of his proudest musical declarations: “I’ve got a lust for life.”

At a time when the music industry’s heaviest sales machinery promotes lust for images--and gives us episodes such as the Milli Vanilli affair--Iggy’s delivery of “Lust for Life” sounded especially defiant and proud.

The 43-year-old punk patriarch does have an image as the ultimate rock wild man. He upheld it by performing the song while wriggling and leaping about with his pants down and only a skimpy pair of baby blue briefs hugging his wiry, scarred torso (earlier, he had scratched his chest, drawing blood, to drive home a line in the song, “Dirt”--”do you feel it when you cut me?”).

But Pop’s 95-minute concert had a higher aim than titillation. He spent the show straining to reach for an intensified experience, to use his noisy, gritty, but sometimes elegiac brand of rock as a means to carry himself to a release and take a sometimes logy audience with him.

Pop tried to verbalize his goal at one point, telling the crowd in a moment of frustration, “I can’t fly . . . I want to transcend this (expletive).” It was an awkward moment, the words sounding trite compared to what Pop was able to express with the intensity of his performance.

The show, in fact, did not break the transcendence barrier--a tall order in a drafty, barn-like, converted basketball court such as Crawford Hall, especially when it’s less than half full. But watching Pop strain to get there was satisfying enough.

At peak moments, he was able to ignite the fans who gathered nearest the stage, and when it happened, it brought a satisfied grin to his bony, weathered face. One fine moment of connection came during “Neon Forest,” when a conservatively dressed listener clambered on his friends’ shoulders and began tearing off his sport jacket and dress shirt in response to Iggy’s rap about the evils of social regimentation.

The set was a crowd-pleasing mix that included six songs from Pop’s latest album, “Brick by Brick,” and just about all of his best-known songs dating back to his 1969 debut with the Stooges. He offered plenty of profane sexuality (a big part of that lust for life, in his book), a bit of romance with “China Girl” and “Candy,” and lots of defiant attitude.

In his new songs, that defiance is directed mostly toward a music business in which, as “Neon Forest” puts it, “to be a total phony is the winning design.”

Iggy was far more effective than he was two months ago as show-closer at the Gathering of the Tribes concert at the Pacific Amphitheatre. His young band had seemed tentative then. This time its members played with a roughhouse assurance.

Drummer Larry Mullen (not the identically-named U2 timekeeper) kept up an active, cymbal-heavy clatter that drove the music nicely without dominating it. Guitarist Whitey Kirst filled out the sound with dirty, concise leads and grinding, insistent rhythm chords that sometimes recalled the playing of Crazy Horse’s Frank Sampedro in his role as rhythm guitar foil to Neil Young. Iggy played lots of left-handed rhythm guitar, which kept him occupied slashing at the strings instead of his torso.

Alice In Chains, yet another in the slew of young Seattle bands playing dark, heavy rock, sounded like the Cult slowed down to a slog. Front man Layne Staley provided the Jim Morrison imitation with a strong, leathery voice, but he fell into the pretentious groaning that plagues most Morrison imitators. Alice In Chains made its strongest impression with a couple of blues-tinged numbers, including “Real Thing,” about a drug addict’s desperation. Other songs were too diffuse to register, despite forceful playing.