A friend sent me this amazing video of an extremely-amped Iggy Pop in 1979 on the Australian kids music show Countdown promoting his New Values album...
The album was moderately successful in Australia and New Zealand, however, and this led to Pop's first visit there to promote it. While in Melbourne, he made a memorable appearance on the ABC's nationwide pop show Countdown. During his anarchic performance of "I'm Bored", Pop made no attempt to conceal the fact that he was miming, and he even tried to grab the teenage girls in the audience. An obviously 'wired' Iggy was also interviewed by host Ian "Molly" Meldrum, an exchange which was frequently punctuated by the singer jumping up and down on his chair and making loud exclamations of "G'day mate" in a mock Australian accent. His Countdown appearance is generally considered one of the highlights of the show's history and it cemented his popularity with Australian punk fans; since then he has often toured there.
Check it:
Having never seen Iggy live with or without The Stooges, I'm pretty excited to hopefully catch him on this amazing bill at SXSW next month:
The Albini produced set The Weirdness is due out April 20, and features Iggy, the Asheton brothers, and Minutemen/fIREHOSE/Kelly Clarkson bass-master Mike Watt.
The download track, "My Idea Of Fun" rips like vintage Stooges, belying these cats' advanced age, but Iggy's voice doesn't seem to have that bite that it once had. Whatever, it rocks harder than most of the Stooge-a-like bands that seem to have record deals these days.
From the press release:
