Portsmouth gig

This year is the 50th anniversary of the iconic song I Love to Boogie, the Marc Bolan and T.Rex classic released in 1976.

Next year will be the 50th anniversary of Bolan’s death on September 16 1977 when he car he was travelling in hit a tree, just two weeks before his 30th birthday.

Both will be in mind for Danielz and T.Rextasy as they play the Kings Theatre, Southsea on Saturday, September 19 at 7.30pm.

Inevitably, anniversaries are always a great time to reflect: “And for me he has always been the absolute pinnacle,” says Danielz.

Inevitably too you wonder what Bolan might have gone on to do had he survived: “He would have carried on playing, I am sure. He would never have given up. I think he would have died on stage in the end. He loved playing. He loved having his guitar around his neck.

“The last songs that he recorded I don't think I would have rated quite so highly because they were quite mellow. That wasn't really my T.Rex. He had a son in 1975 and his songwriting took a turn for the mellow side of Marc. I didn't think those songs hit the spot in quite the same way they did in the early 1970s. But I like to think Marc would have gone back to that kind of style again had he lived.

“For the 50th anniversary next year I suspect a lot of people are going to be jumping on the bandwagon in different ways but for me, this is what I've been doing since 1992. We played our first gig in a little pub in Hackney in 1992. My musicians have changed since then. Through the years I've got better, more professional musicians around me and I have had great musicians around me for a long time now

“Like a lot of people when I think about Marc I think about 1971. One day on the radio I heard Marc and the song that really grabbed me was Jeepster. It was the energy. It was not super fast. Lots of his songs except Solid Gold Easy Action are not really fast but it just had that energy. I'd never heard anyone sing like that before, that strange warbly voice and I just got into guitar playing because of that.

“Then when I saw Marc I was just blown away. There was nobody like Marc at that time. Marc was the innovator of glam rock. He started it, no matter what anybody says. After Marc Bolan and T.Rex you had all the rest of them but he was the one that invented it. And he was just so elegant in the way he spoke. He knew what he was saying and he said it so well. Whether it was true all the time I don't really know!”

Inevitably Danielz’s memory of the day Bolan died is vivid: “I had just started my first job and I started really early. My girlfriend at the time phoned me and I thought that was unusual to be getting a private call at that time but she just said ‘Have you heard the news?’ And I had not. I was absolutely devastated. The whole the rest of that day at work I was just like a zombie.”

Danielz likes to think that appreciation of the man is so much greater now: “I remember getting quite irate about the magazines at the time because they didn't really rate Marc Bolan and T.Rex at all. A lot of people don't remember that. A lot of people have forgotten that but the fact is that he was ridiculed. People said he couldn't sing and that he couldn't play guitar but later on when people thought about it more deeply, I think they realised that he was a damn good guitar player. I love guitar players that sound individual. If a guitarist plays a few notes and you know who they are, then that for me is the mark of a great guitar player. And also his voice… it was just so distinctive.”

And as Danielz says, those great songs from that era just sound so remarkably fresh still now: “The production was so clear and so beautiful.”