65 years under his belt but the rock icon IGGY POP seems bound not to slow down anytime soon. The Iguana descended again to North Italy, Villafranca VR, during this year Euro Summer tour and our Michela was there to check the guy out first hand. Read on all her impressions in this lengthy live report.
Castles...are still made for kings!
The awesome setting of the Castello Scaligero in Villafranca (VR) suggested that something great had to come. No better place than a castle could have been chosen to host one of the kings of rock, forerunner of punk-rock and whatever came after 1967: IGGY POP...and his STOOGES!!!
The crowd arrives in dribs and drabs to the castle. Three Italian bands open the show: the Movie Star Junkies from Turin, the Cut, born in Bologna, and the Milan-based Orange. Predictable that everybody’s there for Iggy and the Stooges and no comparison must be drawn with the headliners. The Movie star Junkies jump on stage at 19:30. They play their dirty “blues punk” for 40 minutes and although the sound may not suit ideally with that of the headliners, the crowd seems to be very interested into these guys from Turin on the wake of Birthday Party, Scientists e Suicide. With some European and US tours behind them, they really look at ease on the big stage. After about 30-40 minutes, the MSJ leave the ground to The Cut and their electric rock’n roll: they dig into garage, funk and soul playing without rest during their 45 minutes. The Cut are not beginners at all…on stage since ’96, their last album has been recorded and mixed by Matt Verta-Ray of Speedball Baby/Heavy Trash fame in his New York studio, NY HED and mastered by Mr. Ivan Julian (Richard Hell and The Voidoids).
The Orange have the hard but also enviable duty to play just before the myths. The Milan-based duo (guitar and drums) lead by Francesco Mandelli, has a special line up today and in some songs they add bass and 2 guitars. The general impression is that other Italian bands would have done it better: apart from the understandable stress, the band lacks drive and personality. The opening chords of one of their songs even remind me a Stooges’ success...another one sounds a bit like “Where is my mind” by the Pixies. They define themselves as a garage band but actually they pick up here and there getting stuck between a fashionable rock ‘n roll and flat brit pop.
But let’s go to the real stars! It’s about 21:30 when people from the Stooges’ staff climb the stage to check the backline with extreme accuracy..the funny thing is that the 2 men (in line with the whole band) seem to be in their sixties too! It should be tiring to nurse a “naughty old boy” like Iggy.. but this will turn out to be the job of the white haired man in charge of the tuning up and the backline check. As a friend noticed, the drums has a classical 60’s set up, with the snare drum slightly skewed towards the tom-toms as in early rockers’ tradition. And actually the drummer, Scott Asheton, is one of the original founders of the Stooges. Steve Mckay, who joined the band for Fun House (1970), is at the sax, Mike Watt at the bass and James Williamson, who played with Iggy until 1977, at the guitar. An experienced, powerful, strong and pushy line-up.
After an endless check and with a growing crowd going mad, the Stooges burst onto the stage and the song Raw Power kicks off the show with Iggy bouncing and jumping out from the backstage. In the pink. Definitely… As 45 years ago! The choice to start off with a bang should promise an equally detonating show… and so it is as the whole playlist includes tracks from the 3 powerful Stooges albums! The second song starts without interruption and it is nothing less than the violent, angry Search and destroy, played at the right fast pace and with the adequate dose of rage. For the 4th song, Shake Appeal, Iggy wants the audience on stage and so 20 fans cross the crush barrier and jump up.. he doesn’t seem to be surprised nor annoyed when a boy tries to kiss him repeatedly in his mouth. Trifles! During the wild dance, that’s the white haired man job to protect Iggy from the fans’assault…but the Rock Iguana seems to appreciate the mess.
The show goes on without rest: no breaks for the Stooges..Iggy keeps on bouncing, running, turning over and over, twisting the microphone cable around himself (and again the same white haired man has to unwind it!) He takes a one-minute-break twice, just the time to approach the backstage running, but the band never stops playing! The Stooges jam, the guitar crying close to the amp in hyperbolic distortions and the bass slapping with madness..sax and drums follow, adding power to power. The warm is stifling but they give it all in an adrenalinic performance. Pace, punch and attitude are those of the ‘70s… Iggy keeps pouring bottles of water on his head, dancing, swaying his hips, waving to the crowd. He stops to talk 3 times during the whole concert, just to say thank you to the audience with sweeping gestures. There’s also room for genuine humility in his histrionic behavior. His body bears the marks of time but is full of uncontrollable energy. And so do the Stooges! The whole show has real destructive power and goes on with a nonstop flow of songs: I wanna be your dog, No fun, Open Up and Bleed, Penetration, Louie Louie, No fun, I’ve never met a girl like you before etc…etc... Iggy and the Stooges absorb energy form the audience and then give it back multiplied.
Sweat and passion last for almost 1h and 45 minutes long. When the show is about to end, there’s the classical break with the Stooges going to the backstage..but that’s so short!! Cause Iggy Pop can’t stop performing!! He keeps shouting to the audience taking his hands to the ears asking the crowd to shout louder. The introduction to the last song “Your pretty face is going to hell” is in full Iggy style…he addresses to the first raw saying: “I see lots of beautiful, beautiful women there..with so pretty faces..but your pretty face is gonna……..”And you can easily imagine the rest!
That’s the real end, the Stooges reach the backstage in a storm of applause and shouts, while Iggy remains on stage saying thank you, offering himself to the shots in odd poses, sending kisses and running left and right as possessed. The crowd shouts loud and Iggy simply can’t get enough.. So, he starts taking off his belt slowly looking around with naughty eye..What the hell‘s going to happen? But not a strip, no, nothing so obvious...Two angry blows on the floor with his strap and that’s fucking all!! That’s how the big Iguana goes off! “Dance to the beat of the livin dead,
Lose sleep baby and stay away from bed, Raw power is sho' to come a runnin to you!”
The result is that of a true, great, awesome jump back in time…but nothing nostalgic! if I think of the playlist, attitude and punch..this concert could have been played all in 1973.
Check: www.iggypop.com/
We could not track author of the cool live shot here posted so if you are the author and wanna be mentioned or require the pic to be remove just write us.
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