Lawrence.com

Iggy Pop is both a force and a freak of nature. A force, who with his band The Stooges' eponymous 1969 release, single-handedly invented punk rock, as it's commonly known. He's a freak based simply on his physical presence and what it's meant to the pursuit of his art. Coming out of Detroit in 1969, Iggy out Morrison'd Morrison and out Jagger'd Jagger. Thursday night at Kansas City's Uptown Theatre he demonstrated that he still does.

Still the same lean, lithe, sinewy package leaping, and writhing and tossing aside his stringy mane of dirty blonde hair at 54 as he did at 22, Pop now looks like he's been dragged down 1,000 miles of bad road. With an anonymous trio of hard rockers, which Pop couldn't be bothered to look at, let alone introduce, he tore through a 90-minute set of new songs from his recent release "Beat Em Up," and well-worn classics, focusing all his attention on his audience.

Opening with a string of songs from the new release, which included "Mask," "Beat Em Up," and "Drink New Blood," Pop got to the meat of his set, the Stooges' and solo material that demonstrated his status as a punk icon through the '70s, and into the '80s. "Search and Destroy," from the Stooges "Raw Power" album was a potent reminder of how long Pop's been making this sort of raging rock and roll.

It was the older songs that were the highlights of the concert, though the replicating filler did manage to maintain the energy level between great performances of "I Wanna Be Your Dog," "The Passenger," "I Got A Right," "Cold Metal," "T.V. Eye," and the encore "No Fun."

Though Pop no longer hurls his body to the stage, or cuts himself with broken beer bottles, neither has he wimped out as a hardcore rocker. Anyone would be thrilled to exhibit not only the mobility, but also the commitment at his age.