HOVERING OVER THE ABYSS WITH IGGY POP

Every once in a while I get the urge to recharge my flux capacitor and bend the space time continuum so I can travel back in time and check out some of my favourite artists in their prime.

Today's trip takes me to Montreal on March 13th, 1977 - A young and vivacious Deborah Harry and her band Blondie opening up for a tumultuous and super charged Iggy Pop on the "Idiot Tour".

Besides the added benefit that exorbitant Ticketmaster service charges didn't exist in 1977, I imagine the set list would have been fantastic, looking something like this;

Raw Power
1969
Turn Blue
Sister Midnight
I Need Somebody
Nightclubbing
China Girl
Gimme Danger
No Fun
Search N' Destroy
Funtime
I Wanna Be Your Dog

I can imagine the raw energy, the impending sense that things could disintegrate into chaos at any given moment. There would have been nothing glossy or rehearsed about these performances. Iggy commented around this time that there was "no point" to whatever he was doing on stage, that the audience could lay down and "pay no attention" to what he was doing, and he would be fine with that.

Of course this was all before the cool hunters and ad men had begun to co-opt every youth movement and when punk and the emerging post punk scene was flying in the face of mediocrity, providing a new and inspiring form of expression for a misplaced generation put off by the false promises of the 60's.

At this point in time Iggy appeared to always be on the verge of oblivion, hovering over the abyss and screaming loudly into the dark banal void of existence, challenging every convention though representing no established interests either. Watch this infamous interview segment between Iggy Pop and the CBC's Peter Gzowski in 1977 to get a real flavour the prevailing ethos;



This will be the first of many posts where I ruminate on pivotal moments in music history that I have often dreamed of visiting - you have been warned!