Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Maybe it's because he now advertises insurance, but announced at the weekend that he is to stop stage diving. His own, not everyone else's. Apparently at a recent show in Carnegie Hall, the Ig launched himself into the crowd. The crowd parted like the Red Sea and he found himself getting a close up of the Carnegie carpet. Not a good position when you're 62 years old.
I have never really associated Iggy with stage diving anyway. He is, after all, the man who could walk on the upturned palms of an adoring crowd. (Four minutes and fifteen seconds into from Cincinnati in 1970). I once read that a young David Bowie attempted a similar move, in his early years of devotion to Iggy. It didn't work. The Man Who Fell To Earth indeed.
Writer Frank Cottrell Boyce was on Desert Island Discs on Sunday and, as part of the punk rock generation, he had a story about Iggy.
Like many of that generation, Frank read about the bands from the NME, while not actually seeing them in the flesh. Stories of Iggy clawing at his chest were in young Frank's mind when he and his friends went to see him at the famous Eric's club in 1977. Then this small, slightly camp singer walked out on to the tiny stage. Someone standing behind Frank said "It's Melvin Hayes". The image of Iggy Pop as Gloria from It Ain't Half Hot Mum is one that brightened my weekend. (Nice black and white pic of The Stooges , Iggy second from right, just before they sacked Windsor Davies)