Iggy Pop on ‘Later With Jools Holland’

An Essay on a classic performance of Lust for Life

Got a favourite music video? One you must watch end to end whenever started? That you push onto friends after a few drinks? For me, it has to be the outrageous slaying of an external and live-in-the-studio audience on Later … with Jools Holland. The old leather-skinned and gnarly Iggy Pop joins a hot, rocking, and popping pick-up band made up of the guys in his touring party and the nucleus of who made the ‘Post Pop Depression’ album. On the show, they eschew current material and revisit the old 1977 classic in 2015 style.

What a history this tune has. In addition to its 1977 debut and subsequent acknowledgment as a left-of-the-dial rock classic in the 1980s, it gained new fame and prominence with its inclusion on the 1990s ‘Trainspotting’ soundtrack, where it fitted prophylactically to the drama on screen. Since then, it has continued its stay as a hedonistic anthem for each generation or those reliving a demented youth.

On guitars is band leader Josh Homme with Dean Fertita, along with Troy Van Leeuwen on backing vocals and tambourine, all from ‘The Queens of the Stone Age.’ Matt Sweeney with a CV from working with many cool folks is on bass, and…