The dream lexicon of today's child person holds rock and roll's tie-dyed, limousined legions approaching number one in nighttime fantasyland.
Marc Bolan, poet, prophet, phase II Beatle, was given those dreams by his gods a dozen East End years ago. The dreams put Elvis Presley visions into
Marc's head, fancy shoes on his feet, early associations with the likes of Cat and Elton into his book of friends. The dreams ordained those early but
long years of struggling and having his name changed and the quiet cult adoration of Tyrannosaurus Rex followers in London's summer of Love. The dreams
had the name and face of Marc Bolan known to every household encasing a young female body in the British Isles. Marc Bolan was luckier than most - today he
is living the dream. And worrying about whether the dream lives him...
Marc Bolan has led a life of contrasts, and has a personality to match. He is immediately engrossing, and when he contradicts himself within five seconds
not batting an eye, you don't either. He is admittedly arrogant and egocentric, yet listens so carefully to another's thoughts that he is forgiven his self-pronounced
greatness. At the age of 24, Marc Bolan is a "teenage idol," living his modern mythology, comparing T.Rex to the acknowledged rock gods. But he is also a person, an
intently private one, shielding himself from his surroundings by a butterfly-quick brain, and underneath the glitter dust, he is vulnerable. As who is not?
As Bolan puts it, T.Rex's "happening" to the point that what they have is Phase II of the scream cycle. The Beatles were an accepted Phase I and Presley is located
somewhere back in the golden-oldied past, busily influencing everyone. Whatever you want to call the phenomenon of T.Rex, they are a unique something for 1970's post-pubertal
Britain. In repeats of Beatlemania, the children of Rarn scream, tearing their hair and vocal cords, and all for the mushroom-headed Marc. He is merchandized and cover-storied
throughout Britain and the Continent - can America be far behind with trouser patches and 2 by 3 foot posters? Bolan thinks not. "It hasn't happened for a long time. Every hall
we've played in this tour we've gotten exactly the same response as the biggest people that have played in those halls."
Reaction to Bolan at the concert I saw, at Carnegie Hall, was something less. Handicapped by an incredibly poor sound system and Bolan being stricken with the flu, T.Rex did
not do one of their better sets. But to many, they were still captivating. Some od the audience did indeed leave their seats to boogie, or to run to the front of the orchestra. But that was
only in the orchestra, where a stage person was throwing tambourines to (and at) the audience. Gimmickry or no, Bolan saw the Carnegie stage leapers as a natural part of the T.Rex show. "(Throwing the
tambourines) wasn't my idea actually. I didn't think it worked. I think it distracted. From where I was, all the people were up. But I think they would have been anyway, so I don't think it mattered.
But it's an interesting thing to try. We used to give out maracas to people" (in Britain). When Marc Bolan bangs his gong, everybody, or at least the ones that grab the fastest in the crush, can get it on a
bit more. The camaraderie of being together in a place was what ultimately brought this audience together for T.Rex. Spotlights zoomed across the hall - everybody is a star remember? - and the people looked around
to see their neighbors stamping feet or leaping down an aisle, and they too began to stamp and leap. Bolan, shiny suit and fairy dust, played above it all, yet was into the beating excitement of his finest moment.
Bobbing and weaving, grimacing and Chuck Berry cavorting, he was not yet a teenage idol, barely past teenage, definitely a star.
The American audience is still in its formative stages regarding its ultimate treatment of T.Rex. "Bang A Gong (Get It On)" has broken top 10 nationally, insuring a certain pitch of excitement for the next record.
That all-important single will odds-on be "Telegram Sam," another little sing-along that doesn't use too many chords and sat around the number one slot in England maybe two weeks after its release. Bolan feels that he is giving
quality for the money to his audience. "I only have to put one bad record out and they'd never buy another one. Those days are gone, putting out shit records. I couldn't do it. I make them for me. People can put me down or
love me or whatever they want to do."
No matter what those people ultimately do, Bolan knows which he prefers they do to him. "I love so passionately, humanity. It's a great gift to have people like you or want you. I meet people immediately, and even if they're
not physically attractive, I get to a point where I can get very close to them and have a mental affair, or I can make it a physical affair. Cause that's the soul in me, that's the spirit. But I do it, instead, through the records." It
means a great deal to Bolan that he reach his audience, whether it's one person in a room or 20,000 in the Wembley Stadium. He concentrates so deeply on one's reaction to the group, or an album, that he carries shades of Valentine Smith, the
stranger in a strange land whose kiss was frightening because kissing was all he thought of at the time. Marc Bolan is the personification of media into message. He is also the media's child, and he uses it better than any self-proclaimed publicist
I have ever witnessed.
