Iggy Pop: The Punk Icon Reveals Himself as Mr. Vulnerable

Usually when you see Iggy Pop in concert, the music’s so loud you need good lungs just to place a drink order. But when the elder statesman of punk previewed his new album in an intimate Viper Room performance on Tuesday, fans were reluctant to speak above a whisper.

Rather than acting the familiar prowling madman, the erstwhile Stooges leader sat on a stool, flanked by a bassist and a percussionist, as he sang and played guitar. The presentation did wonders for material from his forthcoming “Avenue B,” a mix of spoken-word and song in which the 52-year-old Iggy, confessional as ever, reflects on such midlife issues as fear of intimacy, forbidden love and the trouble with romancing young women (poor guy).

Where the album’s string arrangements and arty production are alternately pretentious and absurd, the concert’s stripped-down instrumentation better fit such works as “Nazi Girlfriend” and “Long Distance,” and Iggy’s naked, gravelly voice infused some humanity into his mostly banal observations. You’d think a guy who has crawled through broken glass and stage-dived fearlessly would be unflappable, but at one point the audience laughed so hard at a line in “Motorcycles” that he broke up himself and missed the next part.

Although it was sort of touching that Iggy is brave and secure enough to make himself vulnerable at a time when testosterone rock rules, he needn’t have pushed his luck with neutered versions of the Stooges’ “Down on the Street,” “Loose” and “1969.” They only served to remind us that the aging rock icon contemplating emotional isolation with such a serious face had already addressed the drag of loneliness, far more succinctly, in a classic little number called “No Fun.”