Wire @ The Zoo

Because of their eclectic discography Wire are that kind of special band that brings people together: hard rock fans, new wavers and punk rockers alike. When a conversation about Wire beings between two music nerds, no matter how much their tastes differ otherwise, the two will be united by their love for Wire.

This is more than evident when I arrive at The Zoo on February 20 to see the band play live, nearly half a century after they first started. There’s only a splatter of people around to see support acts Multiple Man and Per Purpose, but a growing amount of bald, tough looking middle aged men in Wire T-shirts gradually join the young people who got here early. These men are no doubt old school punk rockers from the seventies who haven’t quite moved on from their relationship with Wire.

Opening the show is the aptly named doppelganger duo Multiple Man. There isn’t much to Multiple Man, just a synthesizer and a drum machine, but the impact of this seemingly simple set up is immense. The two commence their set without any words of introduction as making chit-chat with the crowd would tarnish their cool and collected energy, in sync with their mechanical sound. Slow and steady beats lure you into an eerie electronic world, a hypnotic effect that does not lose its effectiveness until the final strokes of synthesizer resonate. It’s difficult to tell when one song ends and one begins, but that’s okay; that’s kind of the point.

Following Multiple Man’s exceptional set is Per Purpose, a sort of neo-nineties garage group. Although frontman Glen Schenau puts more frenetic energy into his performance, resulting in a broken guitar string, Per Purpose’s stage presence is not nearly as intoxicating as Multiple Man’s dead-still stance, but I guess it’s kind of like comparing apples to oranges. Although Per Purpose’s sound feels a little stale, their stage antics are amusing, especially when Schenau produces a ball of string seemingly out of nowhere to fix his guitar as band members and Zoo employees scramble about to fix the string. I guess this must be regular occurrence for Per Purpose. The screaming vocals get kind of boring after awhile, especially because it’s clear at times that Schenau has a pretty good voice, but I guess singing in tune is not rock n roll enough. There’s certainly good stuff here, but it’s undermined by the band’s roughness, which adds little charm to the final product.

Wire take a good few minutes to assemble on stage, with an off-stage ambient synth introduction building up anticipation for the already giddy audience. Once the lights come on everybody goes crazy as the band slowly takes their places on stage, beginning with a moody tune from their second album, ‘Marooned’. With middle-aged bands who were once punk legends, it’s always a gamble as to whether they can summon the energy of their youths for a killer show. It is instantly clear that Wire is more than up for the challenge: they look the part and they sound the part too.

The band follows their enticing opener with the contrastingly punky ‘Twenty-Three Years Too Late’, in which bassist Graham Lewis and regular vocalist Colin Newman share vocals. Lewis talk-sings the slowly paced verses, whilst Newman sings the fast-paced punk chorus. The end result is a fantastic clash of opposing forces of energy, an effortless combination of theatrics with punk rock. Lewis has music sheets on a stand for the first couple of songs, but in true punk rock style after ‘Twenty-three’, he ditches the sheet music.

They follow ‘Twenty Three’ with pulsating tune ‘Drill’, a song from their first eighties album ‘The Ideal Copy’. As the title suggests, the song features a consistent drill-like beat that steadily builds up momentum. The mood yet again seamlessly transitions into the heavier and more lingering melodic styles of hard rock with ‘Doubles and Trebles’, a new song from their 2013 album ‘Change Becomes Us’. It’s four songs in and it’s a little disappointing that we haven’t heard anything off their legendary first album ‘Pink Flag’, and we still don’t after ‘Doubles and Trebles’ finishes.

It’s not until their twelfth song, ‘Map Ref’ that we finally hear a song from one of their first three albums after a slew of new songs from their latest release. In what is a major disappointment this is the last song from any of the classic albums Wire plays, with the rest of the set being compromised of songs from 2003 to now. When the majority of your audience is middle aged and grew up with these first three albums, it’s probably a smart move to play some of the classic songs. It’s not like Wire are The Rolling Stones or anything, and have had to play these key tracks a million times over.

The fans holler for songs like ‘Three Girl Rhumba’, whilst waiting for the band to return for their inevitable encore, but once Wire return, they don’t take the bait and instead wow audiences with slow-burning psychedelic hard rock tune ‘Harpooned’. The song proves to be a powerful and affecting encore that drags on and on, only building intensity, whilst negating much need for the band to play any of their two-minute punk classics.

By this point my head is vibrating from the sheer impact of the sound, which was horrifically mixed. Although Wire’s sound relies on heavy bass, the bass was far too loud and the overall result was that I felt like I was about pass out (not in a good way) and still have hearing loss, and ears ringing the day after the show. Punk rock bands are meant to be loud and in your face, but when the sound is deafening and ear splitting to the point of being unbearable, you have a big problem, especially when it overwhelms the songs.

Although it was disappointing that Wire did not play the hits they certainly proved how strong they still are as musicians, with many new songs holding up just as well, if not better, than some of the classics, with ‘Twenty Three’ and ‘Harpooned’ being the key songs of the night, striking just the right balance of punk zest and slow burning energy. The magic of Wire is that they cannot simply be demoted to a mere three-chord paint-by-numbers punk group. Wire continue to do what not many bands have attempted and certainly not in a recent years; blending classic Brit-punk with eighties new wave synthesizers and hard rock, infused with tidbits of psychedelia, and they do it all with a true punk ethos.

Published by 4zzz.