Wire, The Peer Group

The Roxy, Boston, MA

When I heard that Wire — all four original members — were back together and touring, I had to go. (After all, I named my `zine after them ... for no real reason other than I liked the sound of it.)

The opening band (whose name I can't remember) was Clint Conley's (from Mission of Burma) new band. (Note: see addendum below.) Fellow ex-MoB Peter Prescott played, and Roger Miller even joined in on keyboards for a couple songs to complete the semi-reunion. The music was different-yet-similar to Mission of Burma (as you'd expect) — overall pretty enjoyable, except for one song which went on for quite some time while some guy read something from a book, and we couldn't hear a word he said.

Wire didn't use any keyboards which were a large part of the second phase of their career. Instead, they opted for the simpler guitar-bass-drums model, which worked quite well, even on the songs originally done with more keys. I wasn't surprised by the set list, only because I had seen similar ones from reviews on another site. However, I would've been slightly shocked to hear some of the really old material played, including several from their first album, 1977's Pink Flag.

They looked older (especially Bruce Gilbert, who brought to mind the term "grandfather"), but still sounded excellent. Highlights of their rather short 1-hour set included "Pink Flag", "Silk Skin Paws", "Lowdown", "Advantage in Height", and a couple new songs (one of which was rather good). The encore was a rocking "12XU" (which would've been really weird — a bunch of old guys punking out — if they didn't actually write the song) and a 10-minute mostly-instrumental version of "Drill".

Addendum

From: Al/Suburban Voice
Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2000
To: kieran@ewire.zzn.com
Subject: Wire review

Hi:

Just so you know, the opening band for Wire was the Peer Group and it's Peter Prescott's band. He plays guitar and sings (he played drums in Burma). Clint was filling in temporarily on bass. I'd also say their sound was more a combination of early 70's Krautrock (Can, etc.) and Peter's last band Kustomized than being like Burma. I also think that might have been the first time those three have played together since Burma broke up in '83 and it was the same venue as their last show. Ironic, huh?

I was a little disappointed with the [Wire] show, although "Mercy" sounded awesome (the last song before the encore). Too short...I heard they played a much longer show in NYC. Oh well.

Take care
Al
Suburban Voice fanzine
Peabody, MA

Uploaded June 2000