Iggy Pop has reached true legend status. A recent Carnegie Hall audience apparently believed the geriatric punk legend capable of flight and so parted to watch him take wing at a March 1st Tibet House Benefit featuring the likes of Patti Smith, Regina Spektor, and Gogol Bordello.

Rather than rise to the rafters, he fell to the floor, a confused audience looking on as (according to Rolling Stone) “nobody caught him”.

As reported by jam.canoe.ca, Pop said of the incident, “When I landed it hurt and I made a mental note that Carnegie Hall would be a good place for my last stage dive. The audience were just like, ‘What are you doing?’”

It’s feast or famine as far as violent rock shows go these days. Your author remembers a time when a 14 year old girl could go into a gnarly pit where she had no business being and get pulled to her feet by moshers who weren’t there to see anyone stomped. In recent years, I have seen people willfully crushed and battered by punkers who’d have had the snot beaten out of them for behaving that way at a certain time.

And now we’ve reached a day when Pop’s fame has far outstretched his audience’s ability to sense that they are to put out their arms and catch the man, uselessly watching him fall to the floor.

The end of an era.

Community Connection

See Pop’s signature at Hanza Studios where The Idiot was recorded (it’s in Berlin) at Berlin 20/20: A Photo Tour of a Reunited City.

Patti Smith more your speed? Check out Tom Gates account of his Last Show as a New Yorker before his epic journey around the world.

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About The Author

Kate Sedgwick

Kate Sedgwick edits Matador Nights from Buenos Aires where she organizes her live storytelling project, Second Story, and stays busy giving art tours and doing yoga. Read more about her than you might want to know at her blog YesThereIsSuchAThingAsAStupidQuestion.com.

  • mason in mississippi

    kids these days

  • Tom Swirly

    Ouch!

    As a long-time New Yorker I’m deeply embarrassed. My apologies to Iggy and to music lovers everywhere on behalf of my benighted fellow city dwellers.

  • Phaedrus

    Natural Law in action for selling out…..or is it natural to hock insurance at that age?

    • http://yesthereissuchathingasastupidquestion.wordpress.com/ Kate Sedgwick

      If he’s still alive after all he’s done, he must have some damn fine insurance.

  • Mordy

    Most people just know him as that leathery puppet off the insurance ads now, Iggy sold out HARD and now he’s coming back down to earth.

  • http://www.onlineworld.tumblr.com Mitchell

    Listen up haters. That means you Phaedrus & Mordy.

    Selling out is when you make something, in this case music, primarily for commercial gain rather than artistic expression.

    But you’re saying the guy can’t make some goddamn money off his music – all of which still has complete artistic integrity – and the well-deserved fame he acquired from being a fricken pioneer and all-around legend, decades after he’s spent the best part of his life being lucky to break even?

    Nice.

    There’s a difference between selling out and cashing in y’know, and if anyone’s earned the right to cash in, it’s Iggy.

    That is all.

  • Amy

    While this article makes me sad, Mitchell is dead on right. Iggy deserves to get some money for his work, he doesn’t deserve to be dropped on the floor

  • Scott

    I was talking to a group of young people about the Eisenhower speech against the military industrial complex. They looked at me in bewilderment; much like the kids watching Iggy fall to the earth.

  • Ryan

    Amen

  • Some Random Guy

    Iggy should have known better than to play at Carnegie Hall.

  • Paul Sullivan

    Iggy Drop?

    • http://yesthereissuchathingasastupidquestion.wordpress.com/ Kate Sedgwick

      Er, um, Plop?

  • http://nancythegnomette.com Nancy

    Hahahaha…Iggy Drop. Hilarious, Paul.

    That’s just sad, but not surprising. Stage diving seems anti-Carnegie.

  • http://ngk1@hotmail.com Smokaah

    Who stage dives anymore?

  • http://www.TheKittyJournal.com theKJ

    Seriously, is this an “end of an era” or simply an awkward moment at a concert? I’m thinking it’s just an awkward moment.

  • Donald

    It’s a damn high energy punk/hard rock show. If you cant stage dive into the crowd why on earth would you even hold the show? And why the hell were people STANDING and STARING!? Get in the damn pit.

  • Dev

    Beats the hell out of the days in Detroit when I threw full cans of beer at him.

    • Badboyz

      Only in Detroit where the population is 9% white.

  • sssSpewy

    Scott, stop troll’n for intellectual replies to the M.I.C. Yea it’s scary and true, but off topic here.
    And Smokaah, your never too old to know that yes stage diving lives on… Check out Cage the Elephant or Street Sweeper Social Club or Hockey.
    And Dev, can you throw one of those full cans of beer my way?

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