T.Rextasy celebrate Marc Bolan's 70th birthday at Horsham's Capitol

2017 will be a year of anniversaries for T. Rex fans as T Rextasy take to the road (The Capitol, Horsham, Friday, January 20) to mark the 40th anniversary of Marc Bolan's death '“ and also the year in which he would have celebrated his 70th birthday.
Danielz. Picture by Richard ClealDanielz. Picture by Richard Cleal
Danielz. Picture by Richard Cleal

It’s also the year that sees 25 years since T Rextasy formed

Danielz, lead vocalist and lead guitarist, admits it’s a sobering thought that in four years or so, the band will have been going for longer than Bolan was alive.

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“It’s outrageous! Bolan was just a couple weeks away from his 30th birthday, and we have been going not so very far off that. But whether you believe there is something spiritual or not going on, there are a number of strange things that happened. Marc himself said that he would never reach 30. I know a lot of rock stars have said things like that, but it was true with him.”

With Marc, the coincidences – unless you choose to see them as evidence of a higher hand at work – are more numerous than most.

“When Marc crashed into the tree and was killed, the licence plate on the mini was Fox, and in the song ‘Solid Gold Easy Action’ there is a line that is ‘Easy as picking foxes from a tree’.

“When you read that, you think ‘what does it mean?’ And then the mini with that licence plate crashed. And then there is also the line ‘summer will be heaven in 77’ from the song Celebrate Summer that was the last single in his lifetime.

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“I suppose we would all like to think that there was something else going on there. But Marc always wrote strange lyrics, particularly the early ’70s, late ’60s. They would be like he had just picked them out of the ether, and you would be wondering what he means.”

So is there any point wondering what Bolan would have been doing had he had the chance to reach 70?

“I think he was one of those people that could never stop. You think of The Who. It’s a bit like Roger Daltrey and Peter Townshend. They don’t stop playing. It’s a bit like The Stones. Once it is in your blood, you just can’t stop.

“I think Marc Bolan would still have been playing live, and I think he would have been producing as well.

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“When Marc Bolan died, he and Tony Visconti were getting back together again, and if they had got back together again, those records would have been spectacular. Marc had just completed a really successful tour. He had The Damned supporting him. The punk rock movement really took Marc Bolan to their heart. You had people like Billy Idol. All the new wave were really getting Marc back to where he was before. Before that, he was not really going through a lull as such, but some of the fans had moved on to different music at the time. It would have been difficult for him to get back to Wembley Stadium or Wembley Arena. He must have seen people like Elton John and Rod Stewart doing that, and it must have been hard that these people were touring America and being very successful, and Marc, not changing, was still the rock ‘n’ roller. He must have felt what had gone really. But the great thing was that in 1977 he was coming back 100 percent and people who had maybe left him were coming back to listen to him again.”

Tickets cost £21.50. Call the box office on 01403 750220.

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