Celebrate your elders. They have artistic imperatives of their own. The men of Wire—who arrived in the late 70s playing lean, loud blasts, strictly arranged, popularly termed “punk rock” but perhaps better described as a kind of rigorous poetry written in noise—were maybe always meant to be old (read: older). When they play their earliest songs now, over 30 years later, they make more sense than ever, because they sound like examples of a formal economy that most artists only arrive at after decades of whittling away gross excess. All of which is embodied in the frighteningly muscled arms of Robert Grey (formerly Gotobed), the Clint Eastwood of drummers.
Those arms were the focus of my vision the last time Wire played First Avenue, in 2008, and now, three years later, the arms remain mostly unchanged, as does the band, though I wonder if they’re even tougher, scarier than before. Margaret Fiedler, formerly of Moonshake, and who filled in on guitar in 2008, is gone, replaced with the very young, especially by comparison, Matt Simms, whose presence is almost superfluous (in the case of Wire, the terser, the more austere, the better) except when adding buzzsaw guitar that cuts in and out regularly, another layer of scarily stark structure, or when stealing the show with a feedback squall at the end of “Pink Flag.”
The set took a detour at the midway point toward “Map Ref. 41°N 93°W” and other more spacious “pop” songs, and while the former is among Wire’s best songs, it felt a bit foreign to where they are now. When Colin Newman led into the song’s chorus by announcing it—“Chorus.”—it seemed like not merely a joke, but an admission that the song choice was perfunctory, a matter of expectation. Even so, they have a storied discography, they can still call up more sustained, melodic reveries, and songs from the new Red Barked Tree vary the bone-dry and compact with the lush and long-chorded, so let’s just say this: It seemed like certain songs weren’t meant to be heard on this particular night. They were feeling too dangerous.
I wonder where Wire will be another 30 years from now, when they’re in their 80s and peering into the void. We’ve had old man poets, old man filmmakers, old man painters, old jazz men, but we’ve yet to discover who will be the first old man punk musicians. I think Wire will be among them, still tied to punk’s liberating strictures and its scripture, which to my way of thinking is merely this: You know you’re not dead yet when there’s still a rumble in your ears.
The opening set by Arcwelder promised, at least in name, a very metallic double bill, and it was indeed a dense, more local clang, heavy and melodic. I’m just learning their history myself, so let me summarize: They emerged in the late 80s from the Twin Cities despair that followed the demise of Hüsker Dü, and have been intermittently active ever since. Bill Graber and Rob Graber share guitar and bass duties, and nothing is really lost or gained when they switch instruments, since both play bass the same way they play guitar, the strummed and ever-vibrating bass giving the songs a distinct, persistent rumble. Scott MacDonald, like Grant Hart before him, drums and sings admirably, and the band, truly of this city, continues for the sake of a local reception. They have some fervent followers here, unmatched even in Wire’s audience.
Wire:
Arcwelder:
