Are you ready for the devil's music? Well, at this summer's music festivals you haven't got a hope in hell of escaping from it. It's been called garage rock, but a better brand name might be beelzebub bop. It's the big new thing right now, but its roots go back to the likes of bluesman Robert Johnson -- to when he sold his soul to Satan at the side of the road and kick-started rock'n'roll.
It's raw, retro, rock'n'roll in which our heroes on stage bare their blackened souls by stripping down the music to the basics and jumping around like they're in a frantic voodoo ritual. It's a cathartic thing, where -- just like Johnson and his ilk -- the artists use music to exorcise the evil that's gnawing at their souls. And later -- nursing a few beers -- these guys feel all the better for it.
Iggy Pop is the ultimate garage-rock icon. In the '70s he'd pick fights with the punters and roll around in broken glass until it looked like he was sweating blood. Iggy is unlikely to repeat anything like that headlining the White Stage at Fuji Rock on Saturday night -- I mean, he's pushing 60 -- but at a recent festival in the States the dude was scrambling up speaker stacks and jumping off them like an amphetamine-fueled chimp.