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Iggy Pop performs with bassist Mike Watt in the background.
Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com
Main story: Iggy Pop and the Stooges offer a punk rock celebration for a fallen bandmate
In the end, after the kind words and slide shows and remembrances, the real tribute was heard in the music.
Raucous and ragged, the Stooges’ homecoming on Tuesday, a memorial to founding guitarist Ron Asheton, was a fitting homage to their fallen bandmate.
A symphonic orchestra performed a medley his signature riffs over a slide show of pictures from family albums. His brother, Stooges drummer Scott Asheton, always a man of few words, spoke some kindnesses.
And Henry Rollins added a pseudo-intellectual eulogy that somehow seemed to be more about how cool Henry Rollins is than about how cool Ron Asheton was.
But as it should be, rock ‘n’ roll spoke the loudest. The Space Age Toasters, consisting of students from Ann Arbor Neutral Zone teen center, kicked off the evening with a four-song Stooges homage that did the band proud.
After Rollins led the current Stooges, minus Pop, through “I Got a Right,” Pop arrived on stage in his trademark attire of jeans and no shirt and launched immediately into a string of tunes associated with the band’s later period, in which Ron Asheton moved to bass and James Williamson took over on guitar.
“Nice to see you,” Pop said. “We’re still The Stooges.”
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