LITTLE STEVEN'S INTERNATIONAL UNDERGROUND GARAGE FESTIVAL
Randall's Island-NYC-August 14th, 2004

August 16th, 2004

Dear Fans,

Brother Steve, our good friend Brett Rockaberry, and myself had the pleasure of attending arguably one of the biggest rock extravaganzas of the last 10 years on Saturday August 14th, 2004. Little Steven Van Zandt, the Boss' axeman in arms in the E Street Band, Sun City alumnus, Silvio from HBO's The Sopranos, and the most reknowned champion of garage rock music put on the festival of festivals in New York City. 35 bands, numerous guest appearances, and the legendary aura of New York City's historic legacy of music and pop culture. The night we got there, we went and swung by CBGBs, and had a beer at Manitoba's. Along with staying across the street from a Hell's Angels headquarters, we acknowledged the feeling of hard life royalty in the air. We slept, and headed off to Randall's Island the next day....the festival was starting at 11:00 a.m. sharp.

The sets were kept to a minimum of only a few songs at a time, like 2 to 3, until they hit the stride of some of the more popular and established acts. Old 60's mod and teenagehead movies were shown on the big screen as the hot gogo girls danced their asses off. They wore through thick and thin considering that their revolving stage broke down three bands in. Some lags in between the sets as they did the quickest gear change ups I've ever seen, but it was pulled off ever so seamlessly otherwise. Montreals' The High Dials were the only Canadian band on the bill, which was rounded out by some stellar performances by The Flaming Sideburns, The Cocktail Slippers, The Chesterfield Kings (very reminiscent of early G'N'R/Black Crowes/London Quireboys), The Electric Prunes, and The Dictators. Stellar performances by The Strokes and Bo Diddley really got things going. Julian Casablancas was bombed, and the rest of the band looked like didn't give a shit about being there, which enhanced the lazy attitude prevalent in trendsetter rock scene. Good times. His slight to New York City cops, with the performance of their song of the same name, was notably pointed out with his recognition of Dunkin Donuts as a primary sponsor. Cool. Sure enough, in the spirit of mediation, Little Steven emerged with an NYPD sweater after their set. This was all fun and nice...as it lead up to the scene stealing set of the night.

Now as a build up to this....I wish to point out a few things. The event was good, but the serious geeks, like Q104's endless barage of old fogey disc jockeys, claiming to be the ONLY classic rock station in New York, clammoring around, attempting to make up for the lag between sets was laughable. Brett, Steve, and I were all killing ourselves with the endless crap coming out of these guys mouths....radio disc jockeys can be extremely dumb sometimes. Ask Steve, he'll do a great impression of Ottawa's Robert W. Knight that will be guaranteed to keep you in stitches for a while. It does for me anyway. Anyways, these dudes came out, yakked and yakked...and the we could all tell something was brewing performance wise. The first dose of how important New York's scene was and is, was with the introduction of The New York Dolls. David Johannsen, looking as Jagger as ever, came out, and put on one hell of a show, harkening back to early 1990 when glam was finally stiffling out a bit. He had the bass player from Hanoi Rocks filling in for Arthur Kane, and that's what it reminded me of a bit...super cool nonetheless, and a bit of a sad homage to how the rock lifetsyle can kill young with the obvious absence of Johnny Thunders, yet the undying preservation of his memory.

The show was getting hot....then the mother of all sets began.

Iggy and The Stooges hit the stage last. Iggy Pop, looking as wrinkled as ever, came on with tighter jeans than Christina Aguilera, and began going apeshit. Ripping into a full on set of the entire repertoire, and even playing a "I Wanna Be Your Dog" twice, he was so rambunctious that it threw the crowd into a full on frenzy. I didn't realize until this morning, but the legendary Mike Watt was playing with them. I don't recall him being an original stooge, but he was so decked out in a full on confederate beardstache, that I didn't recognize. Iggy was writhing around as usual, threatening security with his antics, and even jumping on a million dollar IMAX camera and shaking the shit outta it like as everyone on the sidelines layed there with mouths hanging. All the dudes from Q104 were probably sipping Starbucks and spilling it on themselves as Iggy did whatever he wanted. This was spectacularly capped off with him inviting about 100 people onto the stage and throwing his own little party, dumping water on himself, and evoking the spirit of early Iggy and The Stooges gigs where he went so apeshit, that promoters didn't know what to do with him. This was awesome. I smelled a riot brewing, and began to get a little scared, attempting to convince Brett and Steve to leave a little earlier before the set stopped to avoid death. We stayed for the full set, and left not only satisfied, but feeling wiser from the experience.