Nightclubbing with a Wild Passenger
By Franck Laurençon
Monday, 2nd May, Lyon
What a fucking guy… Unbelievable, I tell you. A sound like I’ve never heard before. You could feel the vibrations in the back of your seat… His voice unchanged… Iggy Pop still walks the stage with class and energy.
[telephone conversation with Franck Laurençon].
Iggy Pop chose the amphitheatre of Salle 3000, not the Fourvière Theatre where all the big names in music perform in Lyon – including his old friends Lou Reed & David Bowie. No, the Salle 3000, in the Cité Internationale, a newer complex, originally intended for conferences and seminars, diverse and sundry. Underground paid parking (no problem finding a space), modern lifts, well painted corridors and you arrive in the holy of holies of a concert hall – the refreshments bar (!). Huge queue, that’s a very good omen.
Then the red seats in a hushed atmosphere, the stage is still lit.
I count five amps. It seems very subdued to me, for the monster Iggy, in comparison to the sound he’s been emitting all these years.
As advertised, it starts with a jazz ambiance. Tracks from his 2019 album Free follow one after another, but with a rockier rhythm, and a sound so powerful that I could feel it in the back of my seat. And then in the set list comes Lust for Life and in the hushed Salle 3000, the most nostalgic punk-rockers storm to the front of the stage. The ROCK CONCERT of Iggy Pop was asserting itself. Throwing his microphone stand; resuming his own choreography, his dance, his dances. Like a comeback expected and appreciated by all, and by him most of all, I believe.
First encore with Night Clubbing (to take a bit of a breather). And was it beautiful!
Search and Destroy to finish with dignity, so to speak. AS THE GODFATHER OF PUNK.
The introduction of the musicians, in French. Iggy Pop, a happy and convinced Francophile. Iggy specifies with an irresistible accent, that one of his musicians is French and that he « comes from the Alps »… Why this precision? It doesn’t matter; there’s magic in it, a magic that lies in a love so big for all those who accompany him.
With his magnificent voice. He greeted us soberly. No artifice with Iggy. Just his energy, his simplicity in front of us and his gigantic talent.
Franck Laurençon
Translation: Hilary Burgess
Well, nothing to do with this column for “amuse-bec”, but I was thinking about something. The first time I listened to Iggy and the Stooges was the first time I smoked a joint. It was also the first time I drank rum, and it was the first time I smoked a joint whilst drinking rum… It was with my friend Duduche. You don’t have to put it in what you call “amuse-bec appreciations”. I was only thinking about it, in passing, nothing more.
Telephone conversation with Franck Laurençon