LIVE
IGGY POP
Alexandra Palace, London, May 28
Wild man of rock opens up and bleeds one more time
“B
L
OW!
Blow! BLOW!” One hour deep into this savage spring rite, this uncontrolled explosion, and Iggy is twisted and contorted, diving headlong into the inferno of “1970” and calling on trombonist Corey King and trumpeter Leron Thomas to set the furies reeling.
At the age of 78, Iggy Pop is having the time of his beautiful life. On a drizzly Wednesday night, he transforms a cavernous hall looming over north London into a magnificent theatre of the ego. It feels like watching a great actor – Burton, Scofield, Artaud – at the mature peak of their powers. As he implores and cajoles his delirious horn section, he could be Lear lost in his storm, calling forth the hurricanes and thunderbolts, or Ahab sailing one last time into the typhoon.
While some rock’n’rollers enter their dotage gently harking back to their glory days and their wild years, you feel like Iggy is growing ever wilder, ever richer, ever stranger, a mutant OAP satyr. Consider – as if you could take your eyes off it for a second – the luminous Corpus Iggy. His flimsy patent leather waistcoat doesn’t even make it past the entrance, tossed aside as he spasms across the stage, a goofy fireball of exuberance, to reveal a torso that Francis Bacon might have relished.