Gig 001 Gary Glitter/Hello

Gary Glitter/Hello
Oxford New Theatre
Saturday 12 May 1973

It’s a warm Saturday evening, I’m 13 years of age and I’m standing in a queue outside the New Theatre in George Street, Oxford, with my friend Richard and a chap called Harvey, who is in the year above us at school. We’re going to see Gary Glitter in concert, and we don’t need to queue because we have numbered tickets for an all-seater venue, but I don’t know this because I’ve never been to a gig before, the protocol is foreign to me. Besides, it’s nice to let the excitement build, and be seen standing in line by other less fortunate characters who aren’t going to see Gary Glitter, the poor blighters. My parents, having driven me into town, have gone to the cinema while I’m at the concert.

1973 was shaping up quite well. If we had ever acknowledged such things, which we didn’t, I’d say that Richard was my best friend. We made each other laugh, and liked a lot of the same things, specifically music and… well that’s it really, maybe Monty Python too. But we really, really liked music. David Bowie, T.Rex, Roxy Music, Mott the Hoople, Cockney Rebel, Elton John; soul acts like the Detroit Spinners, the Detroit Emeralds, the O’Jays, Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes, Al Green; Trojan reggae; cheesy but entertaining turns such as the Sweet, Nazareth, Slade, Wizzard. We listened to Radio Luxembourg in the evening and every week seemed to bring new and exciting acts. And tonight Richard, or maybe his parents who unlike mine were music fans, had organised for us to see Gary Glitter, who was in the cheesy category but still very exciting.

We were in the second year at a state grammar school. Richard was one of the town kids, who were in the substantial majority and were generally more sophisticated and streetwise than us village types. I was one of two from my primary school who made it into this school (one or two others were sent to private school), and it took a long time to gain acceptance. This was partly down to talking like Pam Ayres, partly lacking a certain townie swagger, but also substantially a question of not looking right. The school operated a fairly strict uniform policy: grey school blazer, grey trousers, grey or white shirt, orange school tie, black or brown leather shoes. No deviations were tolerated, you’d be sent home, however within these guidelines there was scope for customisation. The shirt, for instance, could be a button-down Ben Sherman, or a Brutus penny-collar; the trousers could be Levi sta-prest; the socks could be any colour you liked, and the trousers taken up to reveal an inch or two of often white and sometimes red ankleage – if parents wouldn’t agree to this, adolescent growth-spurts would often do the job. On cold days the ensemble could be topped off with a Crombie-style navy blue overcoat, though there was a fair chance this would be stolen since it couldn’t be worn in class. And the shoes, oh man, a world of possibilities if you had the holding-folding: the tasselled loafer (particularly good for offsetting a natty sock); the Doctor Marten, oxblood a particular favourite, passable as brown; the Oxford, a shiny formal shoe with a toecap effect; the royal, a form of wingtip brogue; and the Chelsea, similar to royals but with the brogue extending the full length of the shoe from wingtip to heel. And the cerise sur le gateau was the Blakey (known elsewhere as the seg), a croissant-shaped piece of metal punched into the heel of the shoe to prevent wear. With a convincing cowpoke swagger the Blakey made sparks on a dry pavement, and a cool sound. Blakeys were available from Woolworths, but you didn’t buy them. To buy them was to invite scorn and to risk excommunication. You had to nick them. Possibly due to the literal reading of the bible imposed upon me from an early age I don’t like the idea of stealing and am consequently no good at it, so I never went down that road, which in any case wasn’t a problem as I shall explain. Another village lad, a year older, got it horribly wrong by nicking rubber Blakeys, completely pointless as they made neither noise nor spark. The mockery was merciless and continued until he left school. For all I know he’s still reminded about it now, colleagues quietly sniggering while he goes to the bar.

The Blakey dilemma wasn’t an issue for me because I didn’t have the right shoes, and I didn’t have the right shoes because, the DM aside, the cool shoes were expensive, the leather-soled sort worn by city gents and the like. There was no way my parents were about to fork out for all-leather shoes which I would probably scuff on the first day, nor were they about to buy a Ben Sherman when cheaper button-down numbers were available, even if they didn’t have that unmistakeably elegant two-finger curl of the collar nor the distinctive weave of the cloth. A Crombie? Nothing wrong with a parka son. My fellow village schoolmate, whose name was Steve, had richer or more indulgent parents and acquired an impressive pair of black Chelsea brogues with thick soles accommodating the obligatory knocked-off Blakeys. He was thus accepted by the cool kids, and also some of the older kids on the school bus who let him sit with them at the back. Steve quickly morphed into a sarcastic, flint-hearted shyster who within the first fortnight at big school discarded me as a rustic embarrassment. I kept my head down and hung in there. Things started to turn in my favour when we had non-uniform day, a form of dress-down Friday where you’d pay 50p and wear what you liked. I wore a quite tasty brown corduroy Levi jacket which my parents had deemed acceptable, and this immediately and perceptibly raised my standing among those who had previously seen only a bumpkin dork who probably wore a smock at home. An important life-lesson learned: always judge by appearance. I think I wore the Levi jacket to the gig.

So, the concert – ‘gig’ wasn’t a term I knew in those days. It was ok. In fact it was a little disappointing, though I wouldn’t have conceded that at the time. The anticipation was probably better than the performances. Hello were eager to please but that’s all I remember about them, and Gary Glitter, even in stack-heeled boots, was shorter and fatter than he looked on tv, thighs like a Rubens cherub, very sweaty, clumping around as if trying to stamp out a small fire. The music didn’t sound as good as the records, which I now understand is because the Glitter Band sound was essentially a studio creation and the technology of the time couldn’t reproduce it in a live setting: as I understand it, the guitars were tuned down a tone and recorded to a sped-up track, and the drums were triple-tracked with a chorus effect (thanks Mac).

For reasons we all know Gary Glitter doesn’t get played on the radio these days, so it was a shock to hear Rock’n’Roll Pt.2 pumping out of cinema speakers towards the end of Todd Phillips’ Joker. This is such a sonically weird, primitive piece, essentially one distorted sequence leading into another across a compressed-to-hell drum beat, accompanied by some wordless, pained shouting which seems to come from a distant dungeon. It conjures visions of the hellish basement where human livestock is held in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. It’s fantastic. And in Joker the thrill is undeniably enhanced by the knowledge that just like Joaquin Phoenix’s character in the film its preposterous, clownish performer – essentially a children’s entertainer – is a wrong’un, profoundly disturbed and capable of so much worse than we had imagined. Back in 1973, obviously, no one knew. It was just a slab of primal, grunting ur-rock pumping out of tinny transistor radios, its chart success opening the door for a series of less interesting songs built on a formula of big choruses and grinding riffs. Some of the best glam tunes had a sweetly elegiac quality, lamenting the death of the hippy dream, but there was none of that with Gary. His autumn 1973 number 1 hit I Love You Love Me Love, sappy lyrics and nursery rhyme melody notwithstanding, was almost a precursor to sludgecore, all the finesse of a tractor reversing out of a swamp. Not that that’s a bad thing.

After the gig I bought some rip-off merch and met my parents outside the theatre. It had been an experience. I wanted to do it again.