Music review: Lust For Life, Saint Luke’s, Glasgow
Lust for Life, Saint Luke’s, Glasgow ****
Lust For Life are a supergroup who exist to celebrate Iggy Pop’s 1977 album of the same name, a David Bowie-produced alternative pop classic characterised by Lust For Life’s lead singer Katie Puckrik as “it’s tart, it’s smart”.
The charismatic Puckrik is best known in the UK as a presenter of Nineties late night TV stramash The Word though in recent years she has been our guide to the smooth world of yacht rock.
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Hide AdOn this occasion, however, she was all about the shouty garage punk, fronting a band including such luminaries as Blondie drummer Clem Burke, Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock and Bowie guitarist Kevin Armstrong, rattling through the album start to finish, from the iconic title track to the Motor City funk of Fall in Love With Me.
The Passenger (co-written by late Edinburgh guitarist Ricky Gardiner), was anchored by Burke and Matlock, with a glistening keyboard solo from Florence Sabeva, while Puckrik declaimed in her deep alto range on Tonight and channelled some of Debbie Harry's irreverent cool on the roistering Success (another Gardiner co-write).
A fun film in which the likes of Sparks, Steve Norman and Bowie and Pop themselves (via archive footage) introduced the band in turn preceded a second half of Iggy hits and simpatico sundries, including the grubby prowl of Nightclubbing, the menacing celebration of Funtime and its mischief-making flipside I’m Bored, the leftfield love song China Girl and the garage rock spectacular that is The Stooges’ I Wanna Be Your Dog.
Armstrong led on Bowie’s Absolute Beginners, a song he helped to arrange, Burke and Matlock naturally led the charge on Blondie's Hanging on the Telephone and The Sex Pistols’ Pretty Vacant and Bowie’s slinky Stay and The Stooges’ unfettered Search and Destroy demonstrated the rocking range on display.