MUSIC

Thekla, Bristol (Tue 29 Nov)

At the merch stand, sales of the Wire shopping bag appear sluggish as we listen in thoughtful silence to the tribal scree of tonight’s support, Talk Normal. This audience of portly post-punkers, appetites jaded by long years at Rock’s quarry face, have almost certainly heard it all before and reach consensus; 23 Skidoo were they signed to DFA. There are no cheers when the lights go down and Wire amble on stage to just a smattering of applause. Was this perhaps, the wrong day to begin reading Simon Reynolds’s ‘Retromania’? In fairness, for a band whose entire career came and went before even the idea of the internet existed, Wire’s return to live performances in 2000 and ‘Send’ in 2003, delivered a splendid album of scorched-earth guitars and undeniable vigour that propelled them way beyond post-punk with a great deal of good will and momentum. Bassist Graham Lewis is dressed, for no obvious reason, like a Scot on a biscuit tin. Colin Newman has an iPad elaborately strapped to a stand. He will use it to check Twitter, insists my companion. In reality it appears to serve as a large print set list, occasional lyric prompt a la Babs Streisand and the source of some fancy touch-screen soft synth-style syrupy noise. Touring guitarist and young ’un, Matt Simms does much of the heavy lifting, smearing guitar squall and clangourous chimes over the trio’s queasy chug. Lengthy Cubist noise mantras driven by Robert Grey’s metronomic drums and topped by Newman’s reliably unlovely snarl build to crescendos and stop on a sixpence. Wire construct pop songs like lab technicians turning over dead specimens, holding the form at arm’s length with a clinical distaste. ‘Map Ref 41°N 93°W’, almost a hit single, is tonight’s only concession to popularity. We don’t get ‘I Am The Fly’ and the crowd shout out unlikely requests for ‘Skip The Sausage’ and ‘Drive-By Canal’. “Twice in one year, how about that, then?” marvels Newman, recovering his iPad, lest it be half-inched by some unscrupulous Bristolian, and they’re gone.

(Kid Pensioner)

Copyright Kid Pensioner 2011; pic copyright Leah Pritchard www.leahpritchardphotography.com