Today’s Roast: Wire
Yeah kids, we all gotta suck it up sometimes.
About five years ago, I too was excited about their recent reunion. The moment the tickets hit the booth I plunked down my hard earned American Andrew for the privilege of catching one of the most important, influential musical outfits in my particular margin of righteous rock snobbery.
Granted, I had mixed feelings about the Read and Burn EPs they’d just released. The songs weren’t bad, but they were somewhat marred by questionable recording decisions, such as the chunky, tinny, Ministry distortion that rattled through the better part of them. Either way, it was maybe a little better than the techno stuff they’d been toying with in the mid-to-late eighties (which, looking back on it now, really wasn’t that bad) even if not as memorable as anything off of the grand trinity of Pink Flag, Chairs Missing and 154. Still, it was fucking Wire, and judging by interviews I’d read at the time, they were at least partially reforming in response to the interest in them that had been renewed by a young generation of bands that included Erase Errata and Interpol. This meant that they would be bringing the rock, the singularly inimatable Wire rock, or so I thought.
This was in Austin, at a gaudily corporate rock venue known as La Zona Rosa. I’m sure you know places like it, goony bouncers and titty dancer bartenders shilling overpriced Miller Lite. It’s not a fucking fun place to see shows, so my mood was already a tad somber. I soon found out that would be the mood prevailing mood of the night.
After a long, dull debut set by Austin’s own I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness, Wire took the stage and I spent about the next forty-five minutes trying to convince myself I wasn’t bored, even when they did Reuters, Pink Flag and, predictably, 12XU as encores.
It took talking to my friend in New York, who’d seen pretty much the same show, to shove the bitter, yet bitterly healing, pill down my throat. His words: “That shit sucked. Bruce Gilbert looked like he’d rather be making toast, and that singer (Colin Newman) acted like an idiot.â€
Fuck it, when it’s true it’s true. Facing it and admitting it was a relief but, like jalapeno diarrhea, it was a stinging one. Wire sucked, and, at least as a live band, probably always have.
The first three albums, sure. Classics, yeah, whatever. They also had a hand in opening the door for a lot of “impressionistic†bullshit calling itself art to seep into pop consciousness. They may be directly responsible for the young Michael Stipe’s “enigmatic†lyrics and persona. On the other hand, Big Black, the Minutemen, Mission of Burma, Naked Raygun and a fairly long list of other impressives might not have existed in quite the same form if it weren’t for Wire. Then again, they might have. Other bands that had helped shape the sonic aesthetics of the aforementioned existed either before or about the same time. A brief list would Gang of Four, Beefheart, Can, the Stooges, VU, the Fall, the Birthday Party and the Buzzcocks and that’s just off the top of my head. Really, why give Wire as much credit as we do?
The reality is that they were always just a band. Nothing wrong with that, really, but for a spell they looked like maybe the one band that had struck that odd balance between the visceral, the cerebral, the primal, the intellectual and the absurdly funny- all the disparate back yards of legitimate rock n’ roll expression. Fuck it, looks like they were just straddling fences.
Granted, maybe I’m just taking too much from that show, but I know I’ll never go see them live again. It’s pretty fucking sad when the idea of sitting at home listening to someone’s records is several notches more exciting than the prospect of seeing them perform.
I mean, Jesus, they made the waxen statues in Slint look like the Who. That shit’s not right.
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I’d been to La Zona Rosa two other times, once to see Cheap Trick and once to see the Butthole Surfers.
Cheap Trick was of my own accord, Surfers because my roomates were going and I thought what the hell, the Buttholes had a moment back in the day.
Cheap Trick were as good as you might imagine, the Buttholes as lame as you might imagine, and neither of them endeared me to La Zona Rosa.
Fuck, it only made me miss Liberty Lunch.
For the record, I find myself infinitely far too entertaining to desire the company of these ‘friends’ you speak of.
Really, why give Wire as much credit as we do?
uh, because wire is fucking awesome, that’s why. are you serious?
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Comment by joiezabel — February 22, 2007 @ 1:36 pm
i’ve had some kickass times at la zona rosa, for the record. it can be a fun place to see a show if you’re with the right people. but then again, what isn’t fun if you’re with the right people?
i feel like you need some friends, oliver. group hug.