Stooges Kings Cross gig

I guess its not everyday you come across someone who was at that show. i just did. I have asked him how good his memory is. He was an Island Records press office worker who travelled from the Bowie Aylesbury concert to London to watch Iggy & the Stooges.

If he agrees to co-operate anyone got any serious Q's for him?

some of what he remembers......


n June, 1972 The Stooges played their one UK concert at the Kings Cross Cinema. It was a midnight gig, which meant that first of all a lucky bunch of us drove up to Aylesbury (about 30 miles north of London) to see David Bowie being Ziggy Stardust first.

The Scala show wasn’t the best show I’ve ever seen, but it was the most nervous. Iggy had a verrrrry long mic cord and wandered into the audience a lot. He sat on a girl’s lap and sang right into her eyes. He grabbed one guy by the side of his head and shook it really fast. You had no idea what he would do next and it made for a very tense atmosphere.

The band were…The Stooges! James Williamson stood in one spot in front of a double Marshall stack ripping off big riffs and noise. The Ashetons made rhythtm thunder. They played a lot of Raw Power, though we didn’t know that, mixed in with TV Eye, Dog, 1969 and others. At one point the sound screwed up and with a shout of rage Ig hurled the mic against the stage floor. It bounced about a foot into the air in three or four pieces, in a line like an illustration from a manual. While it was fixed he stood alone in the middle of the stage and started singing ‘The Shadow Of Your Smile’ in his best Frank Sinatra voice. He sang it really low so everyone shut up to hear it. It was beautiful.



update...his memory is good...."how could i forget"!!!

Wow. Can you get proper interview?

How brilliant to track down someone who was there!

Did they really do 1969 and TV Eye? I'd love to know what the actual set list was.

Cheers,
Richard

i will ask him all the questions put forward here in the next few days.

tnx!
can you ask him if the show was recorded in one way or another?

gazatthebop wrote:

June, 1972 The Stooges played their one UK concert at the Kings Cross Cinema. It was a midnight gig, which meant that first of all a lucky bunch of us drove up to Aylesbury (about 30 miles north of London) to see David Bowie being Ziggy Stardust first.

The Scala show wasn’t the best show I’ve ever seen, but it was the most nervous. Iggy had a verrrrry long mic cord and wandered into the audience a lot. He sat on a girl’s lap and sang right into her eyes. He grabbed one guy by the side of his head and shook it really fast. You had no idea what he would do next and it made for a very tense atmosphere.

The band were…The Stooges! James Williamson stood in one spot in front of a double Marshall stack ripping off big riffs and noise. The Ashetons made rhythtm thunder. They played a lot of Raw Power, though we didn’t know that, mixed in with TV Eye, Dog, 1969 and others. At one point the sound screwed up and with a shout of rage Ig hurled the mic against the stage floor. It bounced about a foot into the air in three or four pieces, in a line like an illustration from a manual. While it was fixed he stood alone in the middle of the stage and started singing ‘The Shadow Of Your Smile’ in his best Frank Sinatra voice. He sang it really low so everyone shut up to hear it. It was beautiful.



update...his memory is good...."how could i forget"!!!

I've read something very similar before, John Ingham isn't it.

see also last two paragraphs here: http://www.5years.com/bowieslimitations.htm

is he shure about dog,tv eye,1969?

wondered who'd google 1st. Yes it's Jonh Ingham i'll ask about setlist.

gazatthebop wrote:

wondered who'd google 1st. Yes it's Jonh Ingham i'll ask about setlist.

yes, knew we discussed it before: https://stoogesforum.forumotion.com/t564-london-show-1972?highlight=1972

would be good to hear what else he remembers

thanks, i've forwarded Jonh some of the comments from that link above. I also sent him an mp3 of "I'm Hungry", he listened and says that song was played at the Scala concert. He is hoping to give me a longer reply tomorrow to some of the other comments made.

The King Cross Cinema Concert in 1972#46479

In this discussion too, plus article

It must be cool for Mr Ingham to know he carries such envied memories. I wonder where all the other audience members are now?

He does says it wasn't the best show he 's seen! I have not asked him specifically yet, but i know in his capacity as a journalist he did carry a tape recorder. He taped John Cale at St Andrews University in May 1975, that tape is still in his possession and has not seen the light of day.
I am not suggesting he taped Scala, i think he would have said so if he had, but it would be more likely if there was a review of the concert by him out there somewhere.

As i said he worked for Island Records but i guess got the invite because he also worked as a journalist, primaritly writing for a UK magazine called "Let it rock". There was probably an element of people going to Scala between two more important engagements, the Bowie concert in Aylesbury and the party after the Stooges show!

Has it been confirmed as to whether Bowie was at the Kings Cross show?

About what they played.... You have to understand this was nothing like a normal gig, with the band on the stage and you on the floor looking at them and they sing a song and you cheer at the end, they say something about the next song (or not) and then they and you do it all again.
It was just all out assault. The Stooges didn't sound like anyone else anyway and this didn't even sound like the Stooges familiar music. It felt very confrontational. Iggy had about a 100 foot lead on his mic and he went prowling out into the audience with a very intense look. Immediately you got nervous. . He did this several times, so the feelings it created didn't go away. He would walk around, sometimes singing and sometimes just walking.
Sat on the rail (as in the photos.)
Assaulted people in various ways. He sat on a girl's lap and sang right into her face while stroking her hair. He went up to guys (one of them a popular PR person) took their hair in his hands by their ears and then shook them really fast.....It was obvious that Iggy would do absolutely anything and we were all in his firing range.
I kept thinking 'don't come over here' over and over.
When I talked to Nick Kent about it later, he agreed about the atmosphere and said he was shrinking away at the back hoping Iggy wouldn't come up that far. In all of that, the songs were kind of secondary.
I was on James Williamson's side and I remember him very clearly. He had pretty-face girl make up on with rouge cheeks and bright red lipstick. He more or less stood there - none of the moves you expected guitarists to make - and stared at the crowd as if watching them like a scientist in a lab. (Pretty much as now) He was in front of a stack of black Marshalls so he really stood out. Meanwhile he was knocking out one intense riff after another. Also the stage was very wide and spacious so they were spread out.

They didn't play anything from the first 2 LPs. Definitely not. They didn't play anything that came out on Raw Power - at least not in a form that you could recognise. "I'm Hungry with the Penetration riff sounds familiar but I couldn't tell you what the lyrics were. I don't recall Iggy singing all that much.
As Nick wrote, he introduced a song as 'Penetration' and then introduced the next one as 'Penetration' as well. Everything played was fast tempo-ish. Nothing as slow as 'Dog', or anything that sounded as heavy as that.

Mick didn't film anything with a movie camera. I could see him near the stage shooting with a SLR camera. I became good friends with him later and know that if he had movie footage it would have come out.

Jonh Ingham

Thanks for that. Great mind's-eye image of James. But no particular mention of Ron or Scott? ??

great stuff Gazette, sounds as though everyone on the audience was shit scared of the Stooges! I guess after so many months of being cooped up they had a lot of intensity to let out. I bet the music was awesome.

Gimme danger indeed!

Jonh told me recently that it was common practice for journalists to tape concerts and use the results to help with their reviews. He did not tape that particular concert, but a busload of journalists were taken to the Scala from Bowie's first Ziggy gig in Aylesbury earlier that same night

He also said it was very common practice to keep recording over tapes again and again until they broke, and that they only ever use really low quality cassettes. Chances are if a journalist did record the show it was wiped the same week for the next interview/assignment.