Overqualified dysfunction: The reason why Iggy Pop used to vomit on his audience
Iggy Pop, one of the pioneers of punk rock, has certainly left audiences with unforgettable moments throughout his career. From smearing peanut butter all over himself during live shows to unexpected appearances by Elton John in a gorilla suit lifting him on stage, Iggy Pop’s antics have become legendary. Of course, we can’t ignore the stinking elephant in the room: he’s even been known to vomit on his audience, showcasing his raw, gross, and unpredictable stage presence.
At the beginning of the 1970s, one band in the Big Apple was making a real name for themselves: The Stooges. The group had seized music newspaper headlines with their visceral and searing performances. It was also enough to grab themselves some lucrative slots around the New York City club scene. One such venue was the Ungano, a particularly famous haunt that provided Iggy and The Stooges with a four-night residency to work their dark magic.
Reflecting on it now, it’s easy to see how a concert featuring Iggy Pop and The Stooges could easily spiral into chaos or, perhaps, something more resembling inmates running the asylum. However, in 1970, the band was relatively unknown, and for audience members who happened to attend their gig at the Ungano, they were in for something truly peculiar. The Stooges weren’t merely creators of raw rock music; they also possessed an outrageously wild live performance that defied expectations.
During the four scheduled shows, The Stooges ran riot. Scott Kempner, guitarist for proto-punk band The Dictators, remembers seeing Iggy performing at this time and claims: “Iggy put life and limb into every show. I saw him bloody every single show”. It wasn’t just blood that came out of Iggy either. Steve Harris, the former VP of Elektra Records, remembers the frontman also revealing a little more of himself than has come to be expected: “Iggy took his [junk] out and put it on the speaker. It was just vibrating around. He was very well endowed”.
These are just two of hundreds of stories involving Iggy Pop and his penchant for the absurd on stage, but the genuine hit of reality came a little after the run of Ungano shows. The Stooges were performing at the Electric Circus in NYC when he spotted superstar model Geri Miller in attendance, who had been present at the Ungano shows with the pair sharing a bizarre to and fro. Miller, remembering the lunacy of those shows, prompted Iggy to once again vomit for his audience as she screamed: “Let’s see you puke!”
Iggy, not one to disappoint, walked over to Miller’s section of the stage and vomited all over her. It wasn’t the first time he had been sick over a crowd, and it wouldn’t be the last.
When the ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ singer was invited on to the Tom Snyder Show in 1981, the host was desperate to demystify some of Iggy’s outlandish onstage behaviour. While his attempts to chalk up some of the legends about the singer as simply fairytales largely fell flat, he did get to the bottom of why Iggy felt compelled to regurgitate all over his fans. “The first time I ever did it, it was out of frustration,” Pop said. “I just felt very bad at the time, and music is an expressive medium that sometimes – sometimes – can get out of hand.”
The singer continued highlighting the maniacal edge of his performances, stating: “Suddenly maybe you’ll be playing a tune and you really want to express the truth. And the truth of that moment was that I ought to be cut, so I cut myself.” As Snyder says, “That scares some people,” but simply put; if Iggy Pop bleeding for his art scares you, then punk rock just isn’t for you.
While vomiting and bleeding on stage is a visceral vision of commitment and self-harm rolled up into one, to think of it as a stunt would be to miss the point. If you were to ask Iggy Pop just before he went on stage if he was planning on any similar stunts, chances are he would have said no. These were not orchestrated events or performances for the cameras at the front of the stage; these were genuine acts of self-expression, despite how damaging and deranged they may have appeared.
Iggy Pop was – and still is – the real deal. It’s easy to write off his antics as simply that; antics. But his undying commitment to his art and pursuit of creative bliss means you can rest assured that everything Iggy Pop has done and will ever do on stage is as authentic as the blood and vomit dripping from his body.
So, in answer to the question of why Iggy Pop vomited on his audiences: because he simply had to.
