The Velvet Underground song Iggy Pop considered impossible to follow: “It was incredible”
It’s pretty much Iggy Pop and The Velvet Underground that sit as the two essential pioneers of punk during their countercultural heyday.
Fronting The Stooges, Pop was the leading force of the Detroit garage rock scene, with MC5 and early Alice Cooper not far behind, completely eschewing the bloated loftiness that began to curdle the classic rock scene across the early 1970s, Pop’s feral ferocity worshipped by the future punks awaiting around the corner making do with glam’s sugar rush pop takeover at the time.
Then there was Lou Reed’s former collective. Flashing an acidic counter to the Summer of Love, 1967’s The Velvet Underground & Nico existed in a grittier realm far removed from Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band kaleidoscopic jamboree, dwelling in New York’s avant-garde decadence and seamy, lyrical reportage on drug dealers, S&M, and the city’s urban milieu.
Kindred spirits, if at times tested by Reed’s infamous bouts of belligerence and lapses in people skills. Pop was always open about his admiration for the old ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ singer, however, admitting to lamenting a certainly lost artistry since his death from liver disease in 2013. Such personal veneration was illustrated when casting his mind back to the last time The Stooges frontman ever saw Reed in the flesh, being his performance at 2011’s Hop Farm Festival in Kent.
“It was incredible,” Pop confessed to GQ in 2019. Taking to the stage after an acoustic set from Patti Smith, Reed opened his set with ‘Who Loves the Sun’, a fairly summery entry in the songsmith’s canon, and a number that struck Pop with some very atypical pre-stage anxiety. “And I had to follow him on stage,” he furthered. “Well, how do I follow that?”
Opening 1970’s Loaded and sung by John Cale’s quasi-replacement Doug Yule, ‘Who Loves the Sun’s sprightly jaunt wasn’t a happy accident. Pressures were on from Cotillion’s Atlantic label bigwigs to nab a hit, prompting The Velvet Underground to dial down the combative art-rock and lean into rock and roll and country conventions by Reed’s standard.
While retrospectively celebrated as a proto-punk gem, Loaded won no commercial favours, making little impact on the album charts and producing no hit singles. Dissatisfied, Reed left The Velvet Underground before the album was even released.
With its sunny refrain and buoyant “Pa Pa Pa Pa” chant-along, ‘Who Loves the Sun’ couldn’t have stood as a Hop Farm crowd winner any better. Yet, Reed’s famous contrarian streak couldn’t pander to the audience for too long. Dusting off a former Beatle’s number, a particularly extended rendition reportedly tested the crowd’s patience and provided The Stooges frontman with some reassurance that the festival would be ready for his band’s garage antics.
“He got about four songs into his set and decided he wanted to sing ‘Mother’ by John Lennon – for ten minutes!” Pop recalled amid laughter. “At this festival on a bright sunny day in Kent!… So I thought, ‘Well, I guess there’s still room for a dirty little rock band after this set.”
