April 24, 2003, Hoxton, UK
Walking into an East London pub
and seeing Wire on stage soundchecking is a good sight for these eyes!
Bassist Graham Lewis had informed me that there would be a secret warm
up gig for their Flag Burning event at the Barbican two days later.
There, the plan was to play the entire iconic Pink Flag
album and then after an interval play some of their current material
much of which found its way spitting and snarling onto the new album Send.
Rhodes had been billed as support to Klang, but didn't show, although
Wire in their stead was more than adequate recompense for just about
every alien on board. They'd been billed on the venue's website as The
Pink Flags so it might've been so obvious. The amusement factor of Wire
playing "Three Girl Rhumba" whilst supporting a former Elastica
guitarist's new band was not lost on any who could spot the connection.
Besides the few who'd sauntered in early and heard them play "Reuters"
and "Ex Lion Tamer" for soundcheck, I only knew around twenty people
who were aware that they were about to hear the most interesting band
of the punk-rock-77 era play the best version of their first album from
points A to B (again avoiding C, D and E where you play the blues).
However I'm sure there were a few more than that in the know and there
was much excited dancing towards the low stagefront and a real party
atmosphere in one of the hottest gigs I've been to in a long time. In
fact it was so hot that my friend Aneeta and I left before Klang even
played, but were later told by Wire fans that we hadn't missed much.
Lets face it, when your favourite band play one of the most special
gigs you've ever been invited to, not much is going to seem like a
worthy follow up. Aside from Bruce Gilbert fluffing the second chord of
"Mannequin," no doubt muttering too-many-chord curses, the band were in
fine shape and played the album very faithfully. Some songs had more
venom and precision, especially "Surgeon's Girl" with the hilarious
Lewis nonsense back up shouting at the end. "First Fast" seemed to have
bled back into that one. "Pink Flag" was pretty much returned to its
original drum rolling shape but with less jovial vocals from Colin
Newman than on the album it seemed harder and more compacted. "Reuters"
on the other hand had an extended intro and some added updates on the
mythical weapons of mass destruction from Lewis. "Champs" had lost the
splanging guitar overthrubs. Colin Newman downed guitar on several
numbers and seemed to be really getting into singing the odd old songs.
They might've even lopped a few seconds off those songs that are short
because they aren't long like "Field Day For the Sundays" and
"Different To Me." What was very apparent when they played "Lowdown,"
"Strange" and "12XU" was how much they've improved as a live band since
the first retrospective at the Royal Festival Hall back in 2000. I was
double glad to have witnessed this unique event as the sound at the
Barbican was just not loud enough and the experience was so much more
of a rush and roar in an intimate sweaty pub. After by far the best
live version of "12XU" I've ever heard them pull off, some monkeying
heckler couldn't help but shout, "You Can't Leave Now!" but of course
they were gone.