T.Rex: "T.Rextasy!" Feature (1972)

T.Rex’s "T.Rextasy!", a one-page feature article in Melody Maker, January 22, 1972.

Michael Watts reports on a (literally) hysterical gig at Boston's Starlight on Saturday

T-Rextasy!

Being the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are ultra violence and Beethoven.

AS IF one was needed, the final confirmation of the T. Rex phenomenon came at the Starlight Rooms, Boston, last Saturday.

Not Boston, Mass., but Boston, Lincs, you dig. No matter. It's doubt- ful if the band could have drawn as many people as they did back in the USA.

Something special

The Starlight Rooms comprise a massive bar space, big enough to take about 2,000 people, called the Gliderdrome; a medium-sized concert area, with seating, where bands can play in reasonable intimacy; and a big ballroom, built on the lines of a Mecca dance hall. As the management doesn't have to comply with fire regulations, for some reason, it can cram as many as 8,000 people in, but the most people can remember being there was 6,500 to see Otis Redding four years ago. Stevie Wonder nearly bust the record a while back, falling short by about a thousand. T. Rex pulled in 6,000 by the time the guys on the door were refusing to let anyone else in. Saturday was something special for the kids in Boston, as you can see, and not just because Boston United, whose ground adjoins the Starlight had that afternoon played Portsmouth in the cup.

Kids-mainly young chicks around 14 had come in coachloads from all over Britain; from Glasgow and Sheffield, Liverpool and Car- diff. And if you couldn't make it in comfort, you hitched with a piece of cardboard that had Boston writ large, and a sleeping bag. It was a fine evening for car drivers in Lincolnshire.

Police

The only people who were not as enamoured of the whole situation were the police. Reports had it that there were from nine to 60 cops on duty in the vicinity of the venue. There were certainly more than nine. Out front, after the concert ended, stood two police vans full of bobbies and a dog handler to keep in check the 400 or so fans who had gathered outside. Back- stage, as things got in progress, a cop was breathing over his walkie-talkie, "we've got to have some help can't cope we

Boston was an ideal gig for Bolan to make his first appearance since his British tour last November and his last for a couple of months. Since there is no seating, the audience can leap around, and that's what Rex all about. is That's what ATV television wanted, anyway. They were there to film the show, to catch Bolan in his sky blue pants and gold lame jacket when he walked onstage, both hands flung in the air, like a pint-sized champion. Or Mickey Finn in his matching trousers and long grey cloak, literally running on and jumping upon his congas. I just know that you'll thrill to it all when it appears on your

colour televisions. But T. Rex's gigs are only

50 per cent. about Bolan posturing glamourously and teasing the front row of the audience with his outstretched feet ;or even Mickey Finn, who stomps around the stage with a torn tambourine during "Hot Love." They're only 50 per cent, indeed, about the music, which represents a return to rock and roll roots, to singles music, pithy, danceable and catchy, to where rock and roll is at, in

fact. T. Rex are also about fans -girl fans, who scream their hot little lungs out at the front of the stage while they hold up photos of The Curly Haired Prince Charming, there to dance and romance them out front.

The corridor outside T. Rex's dressing room was like a casualty ward on Saturday. Tony Secunda, their manager, reports that 33 girls fainted and one chick bust her collar- bone. Nobody died, but they could have done. A porky bouncer had to dive into the audience to pull up by her fingertips a young blonde who was sinking to the floor in the press of bodies. Marc, who was sitting cross-legged on the stage in the midst of his acoustic Spaceball Ricochet," was interrupted in mid- spate during stream-of-consciousness vocabulary, as the bouncer flung her over his shoulder and then fell back into the audience. The chick was out for more than half an hour. All the same, she was luckier than the girl who broke her shoulder. She was escorted to an ambulance, shaking helplessly, after a TV light fell from a balcony on to her. T. Rextasy has its dangers.

Rolls

Yes, as the little girls, faint and flushed, appeared and re- appeared in a continuous stream backstage as their hot faces were wiped with damp towels by a team of Starlight officials you had to agree that Marc Bolan is now a Big Star. He'll make it in America this year. Every- one is predicting it. No one

will be surprised. And Steve Took was there to see it. Steve Peregrine Took, who used to be in a group called Tyrannosaurus Rex. Remember him? He was walking around, not speaking much. Nobody recognised him. He went back on the coach, with the rest of us press people and T. Rex entourage. It was just as the coach was leaving that we heard the girly screams from the stage door. The chicks were still waiting, two hours after the show had ended.

Marc was running to the safety of his white Rolls Royce