Iggy & The Stooges - Escaped Maniacs: Live At Lokerse

As the miraculous Stooges reunion rolls on, so does the need to document the extraordinary phenomenon. Escaped Maniacs was shot in August 2005 at Belgium’s Lokerse Festival, almost two years after Live In Detroit, which captured the early days of the Stooges reunion. The live footage sees Iggy, the Asheton brothers, Mike Watt and tenor sax player Steve MacKay playing the same 15-song set they’ve wowed festival crowds with since their triumphant comeback show at Coachella in April 2003, drawn entirely from the band’s first two Elektra albums, plus a couple of titles from Iggy’s last solo album Skull Ring. Great though the live footage is, it’s only part of the deal on this DVD and CD set, which clocks in at some five-and-a-half hours. Other bonus features include an Iggy retrospective crammed with interviews and vintage live footage, an interview with Iggy’s former muse and photographer Esther Friedman, superbly entertaining in-depth interviews with Ron and Scott Asheton and, most in-depth of all, Iggy himself, plus an audio CD of the Lokerse show. With all this on offer, there really is something here for every Stooges/Iggy obsessive. That said, those interviews with Ron, Scott and Iggy really take some beating.