2019-08-23

marc bolan and t. rex live at the birmingham town hall on the 23rd of february 1976: two versions of the same concert: one very loud, the other complete

it was early 1976 and punk began to lurk around when the futuristic dragon overran the united kingdom and gave the young gods a good kick in the ass. marc bolan was loud and harsh and funny, and he even says "motherfucker" at a certain point of the concert. and this was all that a poor boy needed back in those days.
unfortunately i could not find any additional information on this 2-cd-version of the concert they executed on the 23rd of february 1976 at the birmingham town hall (though there are a lot of single-cd-versions of this concert circulating amongst collectors), but the linernotes have it all. the double-cd once was distributed via the mail-order-shop on the site marc-bolan.org, but is no longer available as far as i can see; i bought my copy in 2010.
cd 1 was recorded on a portable tape recorder by the sixteen year old fee warner, situated very close to marc bolan's monitor on the stage, it is a very harsh and authentic recording, and for a lot of reasons only 13 tracks survived, while the semi-professional recording on the second cd brings you all of the 15 tracks t. rex played that evening as a rather clear but rather distant audience recording way back behind from the balcony of the town hall. so listen to marc bolan on vocals and guitar, steve currie on bass, gloria jones on keyboards and vocals, davy lutton on drums, dino dines on keyboards and tyrone scott on keyboards and vocal.

cd 1:
01 - 20th century boy
02 - jeepster
03 - funky london childhood
04 - new york city (listen directly)
05 - solid gold easy action
06 - children of the revolution
07 - teenage dream
08 - telegram sam
09 - debora / one inch rock
10 - ride a white swan
11 - life's a gas (listen directly)
12 - dreamy lady
13 - get it on

(mp3 / all scans included / direct download) 



cd 2:
01 - 20th century boy
02 - jeepster
03 - funky london childhood
04 - new york city (listen directly)
05 - solid gold easy action
06 - children of the revolution
07 - teenage dream
08 - telegram sam
09 - debora / one inch rock
10 - ride a white swan
11 - life's a gas (listen directly)
12 - dreamy lady
13 - london boys (listen directly)
14 - hot love
15 - get it on

(mp3 / all scans included / direct download)

by the way you may find a third version of this concert on sugarmegs: insert "bolan birmingham" in the search box and go. and then don't go, but stay there to explore the wonderful world of sugarmegs with hundreads of townsends of live recordings by the likes of the grateful dead, the beatles, the velvet underground, patti smith, the 39 clocks, kraftwerk, the new york dolls, iggy pop, jimi hendrix and more and more and more. it's unbelievable!


1 comment:

Robert said...

Thanks for this and also for the tip about sugarmegs-- you're right, it is unbelievable!