30 JUNE 1973, Page 22

Glitter sweet 4. Duncan Fallowell "It s In the beginning was

Liberace, fingers weighted down with scarabs so that the Warsaw Concerto acquired a certain Latin grossness. Muted in oily candlelight, you may not have noticed. Then enter the stage-struck half of the Ugly Sisters, Danny La Rue by way of pub, club and the Porchester Hall, the ultimate 'fifties drag concept, insurmountable and only to be overtaken by something slightly different, Jim Bailey, a 'sixties imago out of New York, just recently in the limelight for his Frankenstein transformations into Peggy Lee, Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland. The record from United Artists, Jim Bailey (£2.15), reveals a hard genius for mimicry. But to the dockland bars of Northern Europe this is an old story. It is no longer enough. So, in 1973, who do we get? We get

• Gary Glitter.

The physical resemblance between Liberace, La Rue and Glitter strikes at once. That plucked eyebrows brush cut hair buttered smile cold cream clogging the crows feet look. Plus rhinestones, pounds of them, everywhere. Narcissism, corn • pensation, possibly some simpler biological link; anyway the postLaingites' can wrestle with that. Basically they go pop in the spotlights and the aura is blinding, Then • their treatment of audiences has much in common: teasingly familiar, quite unafraid, with a sly wit which is very endearing.

What is so miraculous, however, is that whereas one expects sentimental, housewives to be serenaded by hammy pianists or night drinkers talked under the table by blue comics, Gary Glitter by rights should not exist at all. A middle-aged rock 'n' roll idol?

There are a number about, it is true, but Glitter is no has-bin still on the road, he is making it now, with an audience which reaches down to the very young indeed. One imagines them responding to the emotional advances of a Danny Osmond, gelded for the purpose, but creaming and weeping under the blatant attack of a hairy, barrel-chested, ageing sixfooter with lacquered hard-on takes one over the threshold of credibility and only reaffirms how wrong we can be about the range of responses open to minors.

Gary Glitter's concert at the Rainbow last week ranks equal with Iggy Stooge as the most bizarre of my experience. Bizarre and exciting which left no room for patronising voyeurism. The screams were real, the rock was real, Glitter had a perfect right to be there. He has been taunted by the pop press for being a con-man. What struck me however was the legitimacy of the event, how little hype in comparison to many more critically respectable groups. OK, he rips off cliches left and right. Presley's legs, Brando's motorbikes, Proby's split pants, the initial opportunism of his whole glamrock trip.

Yet he has become unique, very much apart from the Coopers, Bowies, Reeds and Bolans, a brilliantly enthusiastic showman in the high English tradition. In the world of records and rock concerts there is no one else remotely like him. His entrance, for example. The house is blacked out, a heart throb pounds from the speakers. Eventually this is picked up and amplified by two drummers. Suddenly six bikers ride through from behind to the front of the stage, white headlights beaming straight into the audience, engines bellowing, throttles revving with the beat. The sound is incredible, an obliterating roar which pulsates. Will Glitter join them in the centre? Not quite. He charges in from the side, riding pillion side-saddle, arm round the waist of a monster in chains, tight silver lurex puckering over his fleshy body picked out by a spot, waving and blowing kisses.

The props may be standard but no one carries it off as he does. And the music? With the most brutally heavy rhythm section in the business you do not fall asleep. It is desperate, Glitter clutching frantically at the audience before time puts them out of reach for ever. And, heavens, how they respond. On stage he lives out a real situation, it is not simply a rock act, and it is this essential honesty which draws audiences to him. He is not interested in writing songs in the Len non/McCartney sense for Andy Williams to sing on his show next year. The essential feature is phy sical energy and this is at maximum. His singles were the most popular dance records in the juke boxes last year. There is a new album, Touch Me (Bell, e2.20) which is on my turntable more than any other at the moment. One could not say how long he has got but, if only in the hearts of phenomenologists and fans like myself, he is certain of some kind of immortality.