MUSIC REVIEW: WIRE - LIVE AT THE MUSIC HALL OF WILLIAMSBURG

A Night in Brooklyn of Nostalgia & Vitality in the Company of Truly Great Punk Statesmen

By: Stephen Cedars

April 7, 2011

(New York, April 5, 2011) There's almost always something satisfying about seeing rock legends perform.  Even when you might be disappointed when aged veterans seem to just go through motions, the bands that shaped and defined their scenes decades before tend to at least leave you with a snapshot of whether vital music can stay vital.

So I was excited to see Wire, one of the definitive British post-punk bands. The band was formed in 1976 as a four-piece and has continued to tour and record through the years, with several long hiatuses and the loss of founding guitarist Bruce Gilbert in the meanwhile. I haven't heard their latest record, Red Barked Tree, and though familiar with their sound, I'm not an aficionado of their songs, so what I expected was an interesting experience with musicians distinguished by their connection to punk and polished by their years of perfecting their complex songs.

But Wire's show wasn't just interesting; it was exciting and electric. Playing an hour and a half to an appreciative crowd with no shortage of unheeded requests, the band showcased their varied vocabulary of punk and pop through songs that veered from catchy but complex to aggressive yet introspective. The song structures are typically recognizable, but the playing is so textured, complex, and multi-faceted that I kept thinking, probably naively, that with so many ideas in the music, there had to be something for everyone here. 

But most of all, Wire is for fans of the guitar – even their aggressively punk songs are mixed and layered precisely for atmosphere and texture rather than a barrage of sound. It's stuff to jam to, for sure, but it's punk music you can listen to, with its mid-song speed changes, the varied tunings, and the incessant riffs over Graham Lewis' fluid bass lines and Robert Gotobed's pulsing drums. The guitar tones shifted song to song, evoking sounds from throughout the band's three decades, from jagged '70s punk to underground '90s guitar freakouts to imagined psychedelia, and occasionally to sounds straight from the melancholy summer hits of the 1980s. Again, I don't know the song titles, but there was one sad diddy that I swear has a hit song somewhere in it.

What their set spoke to is Wire's incredible control of their sound. The first half of the set featured more melodic fare, both in terms of Colin Newman's speak-singy vocals and the guitar lines. As the evening progressed, the louder, more aggressive songs took over, but the whole night maintained a focus on textured, precise arrangements that didn't distance the audience but immersed it on another level outside the visceral. And these distinguished, very British gentlemen on stage--the drummer and bassist both the kind of fellas you fear might have once wanted to bust you down in a bar brawl, and Newman with his share of Rupert Giles--only enhanced this sense that everything has another layer to it, if you're willing to look.

Maybe it's unfair to think of a band in terms of its longevity, to consider Wire foremost in terms of their decades in the business.  Because on stage, they don't seem to be catering to nostalgia for what's passed, but instead are committed to realizing in their songs sounds and textures that are interesting and exciting, visceral and fascinating, precise in their moment. Again, maybe it's naïve, but I'll say it anyway: in Wire's live show, there's something for everyone.

For Fans Of: Guided by Voices, The Minutemen, Mission of Burma, The Cure