The night has just fallen and a noisy and colorful crowd were gathering around the Wembley Empire Pool this Saturday, March 18th, 1972.
The atmosphere is very special tonight, as if this crowd were expecting the arrival of some legendary hero. Their impatience seems obvious, consedering the boys trampling and the girls chattering. My mind irresistibly brings me a few years back in front of a hall similar to the Wembley's Empire Pool with such an euphoric audience waiting for the doors to invade the seats up to the last folding seat and attend a concert by The Beatles...
But today, the faces printed on the teenagers tee shirts are not that of Paul, John, George or Ringo but that of Marc Bolan, leader of T.Rex. Fans no longer chant "We want the Beatles" but "We want T. Rex". They no longer write on their arms the initials of Paul McCartney, but they everywhere engrave the name of Marc, their new idol.
For six months T. Rex have not appeared on an English stage and the 20,000 people who came from the four corners of Great Britain to attend this concert are well aware  that it will be a landmark in the history of pop music . When Bolan appears on stage, I start doubting of the calm and discipline of the young English people who, standing on their seats, scream as loudly as they can. Marc Bolan has not even started singing, he has already triumphed ... dressed in satin trousers and a silver jacket, wearing royal shoes and a hat with stars, Marc is magnificent: he is a god or a prophet! His first moves on stage resemble those of a wizard exhorting the crowd to celebrate a grandiose ceremony.
Bolan keeps the audience's attention,  by striking  vigorously the strings of his Fender or his Gibson guitar. The obsessive rhythms of T. Rex music gives you thrill that will not stop before the end of the show. It is a constant, religious and sensual, experience that the leader of T. Rex brings us to live!
The young girl beside me is no longer sitting; she screams, she laughs, she dances frantically, shouting "Marc! Marc! ".
The music has just stopped and Bolan approaches the mike: "Some people here are worried about you (a moment of silence) It seems that you are going to hurt yourself on the metal barriers placed in front of the stage! I've been asked to stop the concert, are there among you who are afraid to hurt themselves? "
"No," shouted the thousands of spectators hypnotized by the singer's magnetism.

Bill Legend on drums, Steve Currie on bass, and, of course, Mickey Finn, Bolan's smart companion, on congas, start playing the next song. Despite the ever increasing noise, I think I recognize the first measures of "Cadillac". Then, the famous "Jeepster" in the middle of which Marc takes a long guitar solo that leaves no doubt about his guitarist skills. Bill strikes hard but neat, Steve plays only very simple bass lines, avoiding the "too much" sound of most current bands, while Mickey embellishes the basic four-beat rhythm. I have never seen a band playing so well in front of an audience so wild... Perhaps is it due to the personality of Marc who remains the master of the game. Arrogant, domineering, provocative, the leader of T. Rex keeps in all circumstances a great lucidity that allows him to turn his face, just at the right moment, to the television camera, or to quietly change his guitar when he has just broken a string.

Marc is lucky enough to be wonderfully assisted by Mickey Finn who helps him, for example, sending dozens of mini tambourines into the audience, so that everyone can bang the rhythm of "Get it on". They play their hits, like "Ride a white swan" and "Hot Love", and then the new but already famous "Telegram Sam" which gets a real ovation. Marc winks at his friend Mickey and both rush and leave the stage. Rosko (yes, the famous president!) who presents the show seizes the microphone and questions the crowd: "Do you want more ?!", "More, More!" yells the insatiable crowd. T. Rex come back and play Eddy Cochran's hit: "Summertime blues". At the end of the song, Bolan, a little breathless, pronounces a few words: "Thank you very much, I hope to see you soon."

Then everything is finished except the screams of the girls who will not stop until much later while the group T. Rex will have already joined their hotel. During the whole show, you could spot, in the first rank, a man, very busy, filming Marc Bolan on stage. This bearded fan, to whom very few people paid attention, because few recognized him, was none other than Ringo Starr! The ex-drummer of the most famous group in the world was ignored by the crowd that, a few years ago, made him a demigod. Maybe I would have kept this nostalgic image of an abandoned Ringo Starr, as sole memory of this Wembley concert, if I hadn't been, immediately, fascinated by the phenomenal Marc Bolan.

It seems to me that  the pop world is being transformed by the success of Marc Bolan and that the triumphal fame of T. Rex marks the end of the Beatles era. But who is really the boy who, alone, is worth Paul. John, George and Ringo, together, in the heart of the new generation? The leader of T., Rex was nicknamed the "Little Big Man". Maybe because he's tiny and, just like Napoleon, his size is perhaps not  proportional to his charm and talent. Marc is an extraordinary character who seems to have received all the gifts of nature: he is beautiful, intelligent, seductive, gifted for poetry as well as for music, very learned and not  pretentious at all. He currently sells almost as many books as records. His poetry book, "Warlock of love" is the best-seller of 1971 ... Where has gone the time when Marc the dreamer was a bartman in a coffee-bar, whose only hobby was playing guitar in Hyde Park? The great adventure of show business began for young Feld at the age of 17. Before that, Marc only admired himself in front of the mirror, a guitar around his neck. When signing with Decca, he was asked by the record company to have his name changed. So Marc Feld became Marc Bowland, later, by deformation, Bolan ... After two almost completely sterile years, Marc Bolan met Simon Napier-Bell, the manager of the Yardbirds. This is how Marc met Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page (current Led Zeppelin's solo guitarist). He soon recorded "Hippy Gumbo" of which he is quite proud,  and of which makes Jimmy Hendrix said when meeting Marc: "One day you will be very famous".
Quickly, Kit Lambert, the manager of the Who, noticed the young guitarist-singer and proposed to him to "play the Pete Townsend" (guitarist with the Who) in a new group called "John's Children". Marc has already written "The Wizard", "Desdemona" and "Midsummer Night's scene" when he met Steve Took and formed "Tyrannausorus Rex". This group with impossible name and ultra-progressive music was instantly supported by John Peel, the main DJ in London's pirate radio. Business soon increased quite fairly for Bolan and Took who received numerous proposals from record companies. Bolan was very flattered by Apple's proposals but finally signed with Regal Zonophone who were allowing him, immediately,  to record an album. The single, "Deborah", met moderate success   and helped to gain an interesting fame for the band. However, Steve Took, felt restricted and soon wanted to bring  much more than he was allowed to "Tyrannausorus Rex"and seeked to put himself more in the forefront... The personality of Marc Bolan does not suffer any constraint and, very quickly, they split. Finally, Marc meets Mickey Finn in a vegetarian restaurant in Bishops Bridge Road ... From then on, the two boys do not leave each other any more. They improvise for hours and record nine months later "Ride a white swan" which opens the group the doors of success. Tyrannausorus Rex is shortened to T. Rex and this shortening also means a total change of style. After the underground experiments and the acoustic music, T. Rex turns to the "Cosmic Rock". This strange name is the one that Marc Bolan gives to his music and his sound.

Thanks to the "Cosmic Rock" we can immadiately, as soon as the first notes, recognize a T. Rex song. Marc Bolan recently told to a British weekly: "Finally, it's rock n roll  that I like most. I could not have stayed an acoustic guitarist, I need a variety of more electric sounds. Since I was born, I feel close to people like Dylan or Pete Townsend, it's probably because I heard Pete, because I saw him and because I played with him. and Pete also knows I play as well as he does! ". Then he added: "Lennon tried to imitate my voice in Cold Turkey: he admitted it to me". Marc now can remember, without bitterness, those who were telling to him:" Ah Mark, with 'this' voice, no way you ever sell a single record!".But this kind of joke has never discouraged Marc, who has boundless energy. He is 24 and he quietly declared:" I am the best composer and author of contemporary rock!". Without any doubt, Marc is of same the caliber than of John Fogerty (songwriter for Creedence Clearwater Revival) and he is the most interesting revelation of  1971 in England, despite the advent of idols as Rod Stewart or Slade ... Marc Bolan is a phenomenon, the hero that the public is awaiting for. Marc is admired, envied, imitated ... "I've always been envied for one thing or another, I do not understand why, but it does not bother me, it's funny, I must radiate good vibes ... When I was younger I felt far superior to other human beings, very different anyway. Now I feel a little closer to them ...

I enjoyed loneliness when I was a child and this taste was favored by the fact that people found me weird and did not try to approach me. The people, in my close circle, always wanted to dress like me ... Today the teenage girls stop combing their hair to imitate my hairstyle and put glitter on their cheeks! I am a master of the game, a master to think, a master to dress ... to be worshiped does not bother me, if one day I'm tired, I will stop and that's it!". If Marc Bolan is the center of attraction of T. Rex, I have to admit that Mickey Finn never goes unnoticed and rightly so.

Marc and Mickey have always wanted to be the only two representatives of T. Rex in front of the press and the general public ... Before meeting Bolan, Finn was a painter. He had decorated the Apple's first office in Baker Street ... Today, he is almost equal to the Beatles! The thoughtful temperament of Mickey Finn, his calm and wisdom sometimes balance, happily, the somewhat crazy whims of his brilliant companion. But, Mickey, himself, has idol whims! When T. .Rex go on tour, there is always a suitcase full of candles in the luggage for Mickey who, every night, illuminates his hotel room ...

Marc does not need any chemical stimulus for writing lyrics or music. Marc Bolan has always been inventive and he recently declared: "Drugs can not bring me anything that I do not already have. On the contrary, they could destroy my defense against the outside world.  At sixteen, I smoked a few cigarettes and tried 'LSD', but it is absolutely of no interest for me. I do not want to risk destroying my sanctuary, my inner world. I am richer naturally than artificially!'.
In fact, on a musical level, the best school for Marc Bolan is to have seen Hendrix and Clapton playing guitar at their homes, and also, sometimes, to have seen them playing  badly. "For," he said, "when you realize that an excellent musician may not always be excellent, you gain self-confidence". What a strange guy, this Marc Bolan! At the same time, he is very self-confident, but very modest. He does not hesitate judging himself the way he sees himself, or judging others (even names such as Hendrix, Clapton, Lennon or Townsend! ) the way he sees them.

Marc is an enigmatic, mysterious, surprising boy who you would like to understand and know. Physically attractive and gifted, Marc has millions of fans ... and very few friends. But for us, Marc Bolan, is above all T. Rex and the promise that we will finally live a great era in pop music. Tomorrow, T. Rex will be as popular in the US as the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. After America, T. Rex will make a major tour in France. Hold it for sure, and the too sentimental girls be warned!