DVD: Born to Boogie

“Telegram Sam” by T. Rex spent its second and final week at the top of the singles chart in the week of 12 February 1972. A month later, on 18 March, Marc Bolan and his band played two shows at Wembley’s Empire Pool to a sell-out crowd under the spell of what was labelled Bolanmania or T. Rextasy. Bolan seemed unstoppable. Before “Telegram Sam”, the success of “Ride a White Swan”, “Hot Love”, “Get it on” and “Jeepster” suggested he was as big as The Beatles.

Fittingly, a real-life Beatle directed the camera crews capturing the Wembley shows on film.

Born to Boogie was made at these shows. Its director was Ringo Starr. It featured fantasy sequences and in-studio jams where the former Fabs drummer and Elton John piched in with T. Rex, but the film’s meat centred upon the concerts. On stage, T. Rex are so rough they border on the ramshackle. Bolan struts and preens yet there is no gloss to the music and performance. Despite the musical dissimilarity, the approach presages that of punk rock.

The fantasy sequences, though, are more of their time and reminiscent of the magicians sequence Starr directed for The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour. There are overt nods to the “Strawberry Fields Forever” promo film and MMT's “I am The Walrus” sequence. The influence of the Frank Zappa film 200 Motels, which Starr had appeared in during 1971, is also clear. Despite Bolan’s magnetism, Born to Boogie is lumpy and has little flow. But it is a landmark document of a pop sensation at its peak. Historic interest outweighs its merits as a film.

This is the first time the one-hour film has been issued on Blu-ray. A new DVD package is also released concurrently. Each has masses of extras, but more appear on the casebound two-DVD and two-CD package than the Blu-ray version. The former includes audio (newly remastered by Tony Visconti) of the two Wembley concerts on the CDs, which do not appear in the Blu-ray package. Some of the extras are ported over from the 2005 DVD version but others are new. The Blu-ray has a marginally sharper image quality than the DVD, while the latter is a snazzier package with a nicer booklet. Those with the old DVD will want the Blu-ray. Anyone else should go for the DVD. Devoted fans will need both.