The Cream: March 6, 2025

David Johansen, Cybertrucks at Mardi Gras, The Chelsea Hotel

I’m generally allergic to bands that I once loved on reunion tours. Usually, a note of We can still do this! sneaks into the show, and I don’t know any good, self-satisfied rock ’n’ roll. I saw Iggy Pop on the American Caesar tour at Tipitina’s and although he was good and the band was fine, something was missing in a room where everybody loved him.

Far better was his performance at Voodoo in 2003 when the promoters booked a Stooges reunion in front of Marilyn Manson. With an apathetic audience, many of whom had spent the day staking out their space at the front of the stage to see Manson, Iggy had an audience to badger, mock and fight. He got in a kid’s face to tell him, “You suck like the bands you like,” and he was infinitely better at that show than at the Tipitina’s lovefest.

But I was entertained by The New York Dolls’ 2005 reunion, such as it was, considering only David Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain from the original lineup were still part of the band. Musically, the band sounded like Johansen’s solo band in the ‘70s—less glam but more reliable than the Dolls—but Johansen made it more than just a trip down Memory Lane.