Nirvana Here We Come?: 1974

Bolan's Glasgow Comeback Chaos

The two-page feature in Sounds (February 2, 1974) reviewed T. Rex’s second night of their first tour in two years at Glasgow Apollo under the pseudonym Zinc Alloy And The Hidden Riders Of Tomorrow. It described a fan vaulting seats toward the stage, Marc Bolan rising from a glittering star-shaped podium, and the crowd’s piercing screams and chaos, including a power cut interruption, Bolan’s fall from the dais, and a guitar thrown into the audience. The article captured the hysteria, Bolan’s ego, and mixed reactions to the new heavy metal direction, with support from Chilli Willi and a post-show party.

Article Overview

Publication Details

Magazine: Sounds (UK).

Date: February 2, 1974.

Format: Two-page feature article.

Page 18 SOUNDS February 2, 1974

THE GIRL in the black dungarees vaulted five rows of seats with the grace of a champion steeplechaser and came to rest hovering pre-ariously over the balcony balustrade. Five rows nearer nirvana.

Her companion did nothing to acknowledge the maneouvre.

Her gaze was fixed as she stared into the new darkness of the stage with a pre-science shared by a few thousand other Glaswegians.

When it came, it rose like a phoenix from the ashes. Slowly the lid creaked on the glittering star shaped podium and the supine figure of Marc Bolan was thrust into a vertical position.

A sure symbol of immortality. But after two years Marc Bolan wasn't making a comeback, or at least he didn't regard it as such. Only in the eyes of the press. "I come to believe them myself in the end", confessed the young pop medico from his tenth floor suite after the show. "In the end they begin to sew the seeds of doubt".

Just lately Marc Bolan has been all over the world. His PR man Keith Altham was diligently calculating times and distances in terms of five figure mileages for the benefit of another journalist.

Podium

But more important are his accomplishments and they amount to touring, recording, a short holiday, a dash back to England and the assembly of a new ten piece show, the release of a single, more mixing and editing and despite the labour pains which have eventually given birth to Zinc Alloy And The Hidden Riders Of Tomorrow, Mare has little more to show for it than a head cold!

His projected stage ideas, running two promontories up through the auditorium he has been unable to fulfil, and tonight he has to make do with the star podium for height, a small promontory outfront for distance and a giant T. REX backprop constructed with spotlights for boosting the ego.

The banners were held aloft in salutation, the massed screams of the Glasgow tykes made their first penetrations and the bouncers squad looked on with trepidation sensing that hysteria and chaos could be just around the next chord. Bolan has dropped glitter and added weight and as the entire ensemble launched into "Twentieth Century Boy" like a giant gloved fist destined to bowl over the whole of the Apollo, Bolan is away upfront, down on his knees, torso arched backwards, right arm high in the air, his guitar beating. out ominous variations on one chord as though that chord is his lifeline. Now he's within taunting distance

of the throngs at the front who are stretching out in the futile hope of touching

the Electric Warrior. Bolan laughs cruelly at their attempts, dangles the bait a little nearer and then recoils. swiftly, jumps back, stands aloft on the big star dais. The all-conquering. Musically, he can't hear a thing no separation, just a swirling cacophony. He admitted afterwards that the monitors hadn't given him a clue as to what was going on, but with a heavyweight team of horns, singers, guitars, two drums and a Nirvana Here

SOUNDS was in Glasgow on the second night joining in the fun. Gazing up Boley's trouser leg through his Brownie 127: MIKE "ELECTRIC EYE" PUTLAND; looking down on the Apollo Amphitheatre from the relative safety of the first tier balcony: JERRY GILBERT, who observed much good sport as the children of the revolution fought to gain possession of flying tambourines and eventually the Electric Warrior's guitar.

'It was annoying to hear them t scream out for me' high velocity kitchen sink it's scarcely surprising.

Both the drummers Dave Lutton and Carmen's Paul Fenton. of whom much was demanded, looked exhausted well before the end, as did Mickey Finn, who abandoned his congas for a vantage point on the huge star, splitting the T from the REX high above the stage from which he proceeded to hurl numerous tambourines into the audience to the obvious delight of the fans and the annoyance of the stewards.

"The Groover" was the greatest manifestation of the Bolan ego as he wiggled his hips, thrust out his ass, grinned and grimaced in an unmistakeable come on to the audience. When he was on the dais it was a challenge to knock him down, when he was at the edge of

the peninsula it was an incitement to come nearer. A dangled tambourine would narrowly evade the clutching fingers.

Suspicious

The girl on my right perceived that I'd gotten off the coach which had drawn up at Marc's hotel prior to the gig and was disappointed but slightly suspicious that I really had nothing to do with the star other than to write about the poor fellow. Then she turned and joined in

the chant for "Ride A White Swan" memories like elephants these Glasgow kids but Marc res-ponded with "Jeepster".

This was where the action really started for Bolan's departure from the stage amidships to allow Lutton and Fenton to launch a two pronged drüm assault was met with cries of "We want Marc" which were delivered with such gusto and in-tensity that they forced the mighty drum machine into

submission.

It was an act that angered Bolan. How dare the children of the revolution k.o. his two best heavyweights. This was no glitter and satin show but a new dimension in heavy metal rock and roll. Hadn't they been reading their papers?

But as soon as Bolan finishes criticising his audience...

"Couldn't hear anything for the screaming. They wouldn't listen to two of the best drummers of the world it was annoying to hear them screaming out for me" then he's up de-fending them, or at least de-fending his own capacity as a hysteria machine.

The reaction was as he had expected. He had given them a choice by laying himself so vulnerable at the front and they had come out in favour.. The reactions, he appraised, had been comparable to the Osmonds, and observed that even if that had not been the case, well even Frank Sinatra has been booed offstage in his time. The reaction was indeed pier-

cingly vociferous, a tribute to the Bolan enthusiasm, the Bolan workrate, and the Bolan image rather than the Bolan music, which swamp-ed forth in great waves allowing little, scope for either the horns or the excellent singing of Pat Hall and Gloria Jones, two fine, respected ladies.

Anyhow, to return to the show... the drum solo concluded, Bolan bounced back, up onto the cushioned dais and promptly put his foot down where there was no star prong to support

him and disappeared into an ignominious heap on the ground taking part of the drum kit with him. Mickey Finn rushed to his aid and helped Marc off with two of

the road crew. The band half-stopped, Finn half-panicked, but a flurry of

tambourines hurled onto the stage gave everyone plenty to do and saved the day until Marc returned a few minutes gruntle as he towel

"Teenage Dream" which is the best song Marc's written for ages certainly since the days of "A Beard Of Stars". For once the band laid back so we could savour the beauty of the lyrics.

Chaos

It was an obvious highspot but the show returned to its all too predictable course with "Born To Boogie", an outrageous address to the audience which followed a "We're-only-doing-it 'cos-we-love-you" theme, then "Metal Guru" and "Hot Love" with Steve Curry cavorting about the stage and leaping up on to the dais like it was his turn to grab a piece of the limelight. And by now tambourines were being fed on to stage thick and fast to keep up with supply and demand, so much so that one all but displaced Mickey Finn's hat.

It was all becoming just a little de trop at this point, and during "Get It On" came the real crowd bonus as Pink Tannoy unplugged his guitar and hurled it far into the crowd. For a few moments we lucky ones in the balcony shifted our attentions to the sacrificial offering beneath us as chaos broke out, stewards moved in and the guitar mysteriously disappeared.

Justifying the action after-wards Marc complained:

"We were done that guitar had a papier maché neck". Didn't he feel there was a potential danger in such a manoeuvre? "Well I made it obvious what I was going to do," he countered. The show closed one hour and forty minutes after it had begun, and it closed with smoke billowing out from the back of the stage engulfing the band and swirling forth over the front row of stewards and into the crowd. Somehow the waves parted to reveal Marc the aggressor calling for the whip and beating his guitar across the star podium in one of the most anticlimactic moments of the entire evening before standing astride it in a final gesture of triumph.

Some fifteen minutes after it had begun "Jeepster" meanered into "Telegram Sam", and that gave way to it seemed, out to the Albany Hotel to begin their vigil.

And it was they who were to receive the biggest disappointment as there was al-ready a police guard on the hotel and fans were turned away as soon as they appeared The police maintained their guard until well into the night and the following morning only a handful of fans had assembled outside Marc's hotel to bear testament to the night before.

And what of the night before? It had begun with support band Chilli Willi playing a fine forty minutes of of country music and old swing standards in a good tight show that was only partially marred by the inevitable cries for Bolan. It concluded with the entire ensemble of reporters, photographers, road crew, musicians and old Boley himself indulging in a party-cum-press reception in his hotel suite.

Weird

He had worked his ass off but now at one in the morning he was happy to reiterate his impressions of the show for the unpteenth time. Overall he felt that the amount of effort, toil and bread hadn't been fully jus tified and that in his quest to get hold of the right musicians time had really caught up and overtaken him.

The constant screaming had been weird, he said, particularly since some of the musicians onstage hadn't experienced the likes of it before.

And afterwards? The future of the present band depends. on Marc's decision whether to go on touring or not. He would like to have had more time to prepare, that much is clear and he was all too aware that com-firmed fans still regard him. as a wizard, a true star. But what about those season

A minute or so later the crowds were drifting away, some home to their beds, others to the backstage door in the hope of catch-ing a glimpse at their iconoclastic hero, the remainder,

doubt Marc? You've admit-ted that "Truck On Tyke" was a long way from being your best. Weren't you out to maybe prove something to yourself this evening? After all, there was an air of near hysteria.

"No, man," was the defiant answer. "That's just not my gig."

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