BAM!! Dude, that was my head! (with all apologies to Emeril Lagasse and Jeff Spicoli).

With the nature of the written word, and the fact the no emoticons have been invented to describe my feelings after this show, I’ve been reduced to quoting a second rate TV chef, and a stoner from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. But I think you get my drift. The show was outstanding!

Happy Birthday Colin.
Tom DeBlase and Colin Newman
have cake backstage.

For the uninitiated, Wire is a genre-less (is that a word?) band consisting of Colin Newman, Bruce Gilbert, Graham Lewis and Robert (Gotobed) Grey. I saygenre-less but, quite frankly, with the early years (Phase I) you could say that they were a punk band (with 1977’s Pink Flag). After that they became a little bit harder to nail down. With 1978’s Chairs Missing and 1979’s 154, the music became more focused, and the lyrics were a combination of obtuse poetry and a controlled plane crash… and I loved it.

The band broke up in the early 80s, and reformed in the mid 80s (Phase II) releasing The Ideal Copy, A Bell Is A Cup Until It Is Struckand It's Beginning to and Back Again. In this period the lyrics were just asacerbic and beautiful as ever, and theband used the arising technology of sequencing and sampling, gripped it by the neck and twisted… and once again, I loved it.

With technology brings drum machines, and with this drummer Robert Grey left the band and the remaining members formed Wir (pronounced wire). It should be noted that during all iterations of the band, everyone also had side projects to keep them busy.

Which brings us to the present (Phase III). Robert rejoined the band and they have produced two EPs in a series (hopefully): Read & Burn 01 and Read & Burn 02. This phase sounds like a combo platter of all the best stuff from phases I and II. Ok, you want a genre? How about “Third Millennium Punk Rock” (I pulled that from Pinkflag.com, wire’s site, so it will have to do). Suffice it to say, they don’t sound like anything else out there today. The live show was primarily material off these releases, plus a couple of extra goodies like Advantage In Height, Lowdown, Reuters and Pink Flag.

The show opened with just Colin onstage pacing with the lyric sheet to 99.9 off of Read & Burn 02 and ethereal loops playing in the background. This is as sedate as it got. He was soon joined by Bruce and Graham who began triggering and tweaking and once 99.9 finished, Robert was on the drums, and they never looked back. These guys played with the ferocity of a band half their age (they’re all close to 50) and made the nu-metal/post-punk/ whatever bands out today look downright pitiful… and even once again, I loved it.

If you’ve never had a chance to check out Wire, for the love of all that is good, please do. You won’t be disappointed.

 
9.15.02 Set List
99.9
Germ Ship
Mr. Marx’s Table
1st Fast
Read & Burn
Agfers of Kodack
Comet
In The Art Of Stopping
Spent
I Don’t Understand
Advantage In Height
Lowdown
Reuters
Pink Flag