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Did you ever think you’d hear WIRE cover the DAVE CLARK FIVE’s “Glad All Over,” not once but twice? That’s just one of the highlights of this two-disc set containing three concerts. The London shows (the same 17 songs on successive nights) find them in their most helter-skelter, confrontational punk vein as they play their first and second gigs as a quartet. Besides the aforementioned cheeky revamping of the beloved British Invasion hit, there’s a nearly unrecognizable desecration of J.J. CALE’s “After Midnight” (more famous in ERIC CLAPTON’s version) sped up and with its melody utterly flattened and shouted. More notably, there are five Wire originals not found on their debut album from later that year, Pink Flag: “Mary Is a Dyke,” “Too True,” “Just Don’t Care,” “TV,” and “NYC.” Furthermore, “Dot Dash” is here, a song later included on CD reissues of Pink Flag but since dropped.
On “NYC” they sing, “I want to go to New York City”; the following year they got their wish, as we hear on the set’s other disc. The material is largely from their sophomore album, Chairs Missing, giving those songs rougher textures; two of the three Pink Flag songs played at CBGB aren’t among the London titles.
Sonics aren’t perfect, of course, but seem like soundboard tapes (the ‘78 show was broadcast on WPIX and includes intro/outro by JANE HAMBURGER, a touch of nostalgia for us NY oldsters), which is as good as we’re going to get from this band’s early days, and the in-your-face perspective is entirely apt for this music. This is a bonanza for Wire fans unwilling to shell out for the five-CD box set released earlier this year that contained both these discs plus new remasterings of the first three albums (to my dismay, all shorn of the bonus tracks on earlier CD reissues). If you’re new to Wire, start with Pink Flag and Chairs Missing (and quickly add 154 as well if you like what you hear). If you’re already a fan, you don’t need me to tell you how crucial this live compilation is.
