But those about to do away with Fever Pitch and get it on with feather boas will very probably lack the innocence and urgency that characterised the first shot of Glam Rock, when there was “Concrete all around but not in our heads”, according to the aforementioned Glam anthem Glam took the Wildean epigram to the extreme. If you’re in the gutter, why look up at the stars when you can wear them in your hair, on your chest and on your cheeks?Facial glitter became a statement of daring, and the Glam equivalent of a Masonic handshake. What Susan Sontag had written of Camp in 1964 was true of Glam a decade later: “The essence of Camp is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration. And Camp is esoteric – something of a private code, a badge of identity even among small urban cliques.”In England Is Mine, Michael Bracewell celebrates the way Bowie “blurred the boundaries between the present and the future, male and female, and offered a DIY disguise for the pursuit of glamour in a synthetic age”. The last point was to some extent the credo of both Roxy Music and Cockney Rebel, the only two groups to arrive with a look that was pure Glam, whereas Bowie, Bolan and Slade had previously turned out as mod, flower child and skinheads respectively. Bryan Ferry, the nearest thing to Noel Coward from County Durham, brought the high life to the high street with songs that dropped Quaglino’s and Casablanca into the equation.

Steve Harley and the chiaroscuro of Cockney Rebel could put Biba, Bauldelaire and the Berlin of Sally Bowles together, often in one song.With clubs now cropping up playing music from the Glam cannon, and punters forking out for something from Tommy Hilfiger’s recently launched Glam clothesline, the current revival will be either at its peak or all played out when Velvet Goldmine reaches the screen. Back in 1973 The Rocky Horror Show and the Richard Allen Glam novels were the signing off point for the era. There was the mid-Seventies siding that was disco, but in many ways the Glam ley lines were built on when punk picked up the baton and ran all the way with it.. The glam revival starts here, but it’s different this time.

The androgyny is still intact, but the silver foil has given way to the last vestiges of Britpop. Think Suede’s Coming Up album cover, glittery eyeshadow, feather boas and Jarvis Cocker’s haircut. Chesca, 19, singer for glam band Persecution Complex:
“Britpop bands make a point of dressing down, we make a point of dressing up. We’ve got a sense of humour about it and everyone has a really good time at the new clubs.