In Toulouse, Iggy Pop has transformed the Halle aux grains into a rock cauldron
The legend Iggy Pop was on Sunday May 15 at the Halle aux grains, where he hadn’t stepped on the stage since 1978, and we had just approached the myth, seeing one of the last real rock stars up close.
8:10 p.m.: the teaser for an upcoming film by Madeleine Farley is heating up fans eager to do battle with the Iguana. 8:45 p.m.: the group takes the stage and the very talented American guitarist, Sarah Lipstate, alias Noveller, launches a dark and hovering intro. The curtain quivers and the room capsizes: Iggy swings a devastating “Five Foot One” from the album “New Values” (1979) and greets the audience with two middle fingers raised high – punk one day, punk still. After “Loves Missing”, a first foray into the repertoire of “Free”, his latest album with jazzy accents, Iggy attacks “TV Eye”, the first cover of the Stooges and a new explosion in a Halle which is shaking on its foundations. Iggy takes off his jacket, punches the air with his fists, ventures into the bays of the room, as close as possible to the public, whom he thanks after each piece of a “Fucking thank you! » Well felt.
He poses for photographers – amateurs and professionals – who shoot and feast. The group, made up of two Americans and four Frenchmen, sends out a telluric sound that the 1,500 spectators consume head-on. Augmented by two brass instruments, the pieces take on a demonic strike force. Four monstrous hits (“Gimme Danger”, “Lust For Life”, “The Passenger” and “I Wanna Be Your Dog”) chained to the floor rock the room (the order service dropped the matter – we can’t nothing against riffs like these), Iggy is shirtless, then in a gold lamé jacket, then shirtless again and, after a short break, returns for a boosted encore, with “Nightclubbing”, “Hero” (cover of the great German band Neu!), “I’m missing of You” (which he calls his favorite track from the Stooges, that “dirty little band” with which he changed the history of rock a little more than half a century) and ended on a forever titanic “Search & Destroy”.
Reptilian, sexual… and happy
The excess of the star rubbed for so many years did not damage his voice: on the contrary, they gave him a staggering depth, warmth and power. Iggy Pop, 75 years old on the clock, remains an incredible stage beast: happy, reptilian, sexual, he does tons of it and the public likes it, like when Chuck Berry, Elvis, Lennon, Dylan or Bowie set the planet on fire. The scene, the bloody riffs, the audience screaming with happiness are definitely, for this Dorian Gray of rock, the best elixir of youth there is.