And here, some scepticism is understandable. This time, though, no cops are called to break up the party. That song sees Iggy invite dozens of fans on stage with him, in scenes reminiscent of a similar crowd invasion at a Royal Headache gig in 2015. Iggy’s voice, however, is in unbelievably good shape, whether he’s deploying his rich baritone on the sleazy dancefloor crawl of Nightclubbing or summoning the terminally bored teenage whine of No Fun. He looks as healthy as a horse, an obvious limp from a bad hip notwithstanding, meaning that supple physique of his can’t move quite like it used to. This Sunday, the man born James Osterberg celebrates his 72nd birthday. ‘It’s easy to forget how deeply shunned Iggy Pop once was, decades before he became an object of mass adulation.’ Photograph: Steven Saphore/AAP Not to mention countless less fortunate musicians who shuffled off this mortal coil after sustaining seemingly far less damage. The first, of course, is that Iggy is still alive, having outlived not only his closest peers and mentors, David Bowie and Lou Reed, but all but one core member of the two original Stooges line-ups (James Williamson). There are so many layers of improbability about this – Iggy Pop at the Opera House – that it almost defies belief. Most of the rest of the set is drawn from the deep well drilled by the Stooges, whose three pre-punk albums between 19 sold bugger all, except to those who had their minds so blown that they formed their own bands, who in turn influenced the next generation, et cetera.
How could Lust for Life not have been a major hit in 1977, the year punk broke? The answer is that the death of Elvis Presley meant that Iggy’s label at the time, RCA, poured its resources into reissuing the King’s catalogue at the expense of promoting what should have been the biggest success of the World’s Forgotten Boy’s career, just when he thought his Chinese rug was at hand.Īt the Opera House, Iggy pulls out this eternal opener or showstopper (it’s not really an in-between sort of song) fourth in the set, right after The Passenger. I’ve started this review at the end of the show for the sake of some context.
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