When Iggy Pop stood in for Patti Smith
To many people, Iggy Pop and Patti Smith hold the titles of the godfather and godmother of punk. But, in the 1970s, they were simply two kids knocking around dark and dingy clubs. However, on one fateful night in 1977, their worlds collided as Iggy Pop stepped up to roleplay as Smith for a night, replacing her during a now-famed concert in New York City.
By 1977, Iggy Pop was striking out on his own. The wild leader of The Stooges had started work on his solo career while he followed David Bowie around Europe. Tracking Bowie during his Station To Station tour, the friends then famously relocated to West Berlin to try and wean themselves off their drug habits.
Patti Smith, on the other hand, was just on the precipice of her career. After recording Horses in 1975, the Patti Smith Group were gaining more and more attention from their peers and new punk fans alike. The poet of the New York punk scene, Smith had a singular mission and a distinctive sound from day one. The band’s second album, Radio Ethiopia, realised her skills even clearer, letting the poetry shine but, in the process, slightly alienating their already-established audience.
Then disaster struck. While touring the album, Smith’s on-stage antics backfired. The album’s stand-out hit, ‘Ain’t It Strange’, spirals into an almost shamanic climax as she sings, “I spin, I spiral, and I splatter.” In Tampa in January 1977, she did just that. Tripping over a monitor while singing the song and spinning around, Smith fell 15 feet into a concrete orchestra pit, breaking bones in her face and neck vertebrae.
Forced to rest by doctor’s orders, Smith was out of action for a few months. But the group still needed to make money and still wanted to remain active in the New York movement, so the band took to the stage without her on March 9th, 1977. At the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club, a favoured hangout of the new punk scene, what went down deserves to be written into musical history.
Billed as The Group, band members Lenny Kaye, Ivan Kral, and Jay Dee Daugherty played a selection of covers with a cast of special guests joining them on stage. It just so happened that on the stage night, Iggy Pop and David Bowie found their way into the club with Brian Eno in tow. Other guests that night included reggae figures Tapper Zukie and Linval Thompson and session guitarist Elliott Randall.
Smith’s group essentially became a live karaoke band. At one point, Iggy Pop got on stage to sing ‘96 Tears’ and then ‘Scene of the Crime’, a Stooges song that had never been heard before.
Throughout the 17-song set, the cast of session musicians, reggae musicians, punk legends, and Patti Smith’s own band played increasingly lively versions of classics like The Kinks’ ‘You Really Got Me’, Bobby Troupe’s ‘Route 66’ and the Spencer Davis Group’s ‘Gimme Some Lovin’’.
They pay homage to their missing leader with a rendition of ‘Ain’t It Strange’ while Tapper Zukie calls out a toast to Smith before improvising a track in her honour called ‘Get Well, Patti’.
Quite a scene to imagine as Iggy Pop briefly replaced Patti Smith in her own band. Oh, to be a fly on the wall during this chaotic night in New York.
The Group setlist:
- ‘The Kids Are Alright’
- ‘You Really Got Me’
- ‘No Jestering’
- ‘Parachute Woman’ (with David Johansen on harp)
- ‘Pills’ (with David Johansen)
- ‘Some Kinda Wonderful’ (with Elliott Randall)
- ‘Route 66’ (with Elliott Randall)
- ‘The Worst That Could Happen’
- ‘Ain’t It Strange’ (with Tapper Zukie)
- ‘One More Chance’ (with Linval Thompson)
- ‘Gimme Some Lovin’’
- ’96 Tears/Scene of the Crime’ (with Iggy Pop)
- ‘Get well, Patti’
- ‘It’s All Over Now’ (with Leigh Foxx)
- ‘I Can’t Explain’ (with Jay Dee on lead vocal & guitar)
- ‘A Certain Girl’ (with Jonathan Paley)
- ‘Goin’ Down’ (with Leigh Foxx)
