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There Was a Time: Live at Middle Earth September 23, 1967,T. Rex

- There Was a Time: Live at Middle Earth September 23, 1967
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T. Rex
Released 2002

Hippy Gumbo
02:33
6 plays

The Wizard
02:09
5 plays

Mustang Ford
02:48
1 plays

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songs

- 1
- Hot Rod Mama
- 02:53
- 1 plays

- 2
- Sara Crazy Child
- 03:09
- 0 plays

- 3
- Scenescof
- 01:52
- 0 plays

- 4
- Hippy Gumbo
- 02:33
- 6 plays

- 5
- Graceful Fat Sheba
- 01:42
- 0 plays

- 6
- Misty Mist
- 01:55
- 0 plays

- 7
- The Wizard
- 02:09
- 5 plays

- 8
- Mustang Ford
- 02:48
- 1 plays

- 9
- Menthol Dan
- 01:42
- 0 plays

- 10
- Beginning of Doves
- 01:43
- 0 plays

- 11
- Child Star
- 02:37
- 0 plays

- 12
- Dwarfish Trumpet Blues
- 02:45
- 0 plays

- 13
- Knight
- 02:39
- 0 plays

- 14
- Chateau in Virginia Waters
- 02:12
- 0 plays

- 15
- Pictures of Purple People
- 03:21
- 0 plays

- 16
- Lunacy's Back
- 03:06
- 0 plays

- 17
- Scenescof [*]
- 01:42
- 0 plays

- 18
- Child Star [*]
- 02:39
- 0 plays

- 19
- Hot Rod Mama [Different Lyrics!]
- 02:00
- 0 plays

- 20
- Dwarfish Trumpet Blues
- 01:57
- 0 plays

album review

What a find this is! On September 23, 1967, Tyrannosaurus Rex -- a simple acoustic duo of Marc Bolan and Steve Peregrin Took -- made their live debut at Middle Earth, one of London's most legendary psychedelic dungeons. And somebody was there to record it. There Was a Time might be no more than an above-average audience recording; might suffer from some serious distortion around Bolan's vocals; and might offer little hint of the symphonic grandiosity that Tyrannosaurus Rex would achieve on record just a few months later. But still, the 16-song selection captures the duo already in full control of their musical destiny. It's a mixed bag of material. Several of the songs had been road-tested by Bolan during his time with John's Children, but the lack of that band's electric assault is barely noticed. "Sara Crazy Child," "Mustang Ford," and "Menthol Dan," the three songs most familiar from John's Children's repertoire, are equally accomplished in this new format, and one reels from just how powerful and exciting an acoustic guitar and a set of bongoes can sound. Bolan and Took's resurrection of two even older numbers, the 1965 singles "The Wizard" and "Hippy Gumbo," is similarly successful. But it's the "new" material that most captivates the listener, songs destined either for the duo's eventual debut album, or for the various demo collections that now collect up Tyrannosaurus Rex's earliest rattlings. "Child Star," "Chateau in Virginia Waters," and "Lunacy's Back" are simply majestic, a point that is reiterated when the first-named reappears among four bonus tracks, credited to an unknown venue in late 1967, but most likely hailing from a John Peel session that November. The sound quality here, incidentally, is all but flawless, but even if it weren't -- a failing that does dog the rest of the disc -- still we'd have nothing to complain about. All too often, after all, a disc's "historical value" is such that other considerations (listenability among them) are held to be meaningless. Here the opposite is true. Forget the history, and just enjoy the show. ~ Dave Thompson, All Music Guide