Heart of a Punk Soul of a Rasta

WIRE
Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
03/02/11

My mind is either going or gone, but how would I know exactly which it is? I mean I'm using the very device that I believe is obsolete to discern the exact state of its obsoleteness. You see "I don't want to go to Nottingham". Oh no. I wanted to see WIRE at the Roadhouse in Manchester, but I forget to buy the tickets, and then a load of other folk had the temerity to buy up all the tickets. So before I could remember what I'd tied that bit of string tied around my thing for they'd sold out in Manchester. And now with a memory that's shot I've got make a two hour journey up to bleeding Nottingham!

I do love Nottingham though......cough! It's a fine old city, steeped in history - Errol Flynn in baggy Sherwood green and all that shit. I don't know why Ian Dury took such an exception to poor old Robin Hood. Do you remember what he said in "This is What we Find"? No? Well the old bard of Essex said this "Hello Mrs Wood, this boy looks familiar, they used to call him Robin Hood. Now he's Robin fucking shit cunt" Ian must have been going through his Geoffrey Chaucer phase when he wrote that, or was he just completely off his face. Who knows? Anyway talking of being shit faced the Blue Bell Inn was still there in Parliament Street Nottingham, it gave me a nod of recognition as I passed by en-route to the Rescue Rooms - but those days are long gone and over for me - I just can't remember why though. Back in the early eighties when bands of all sizes could get gigs at the Boathouse or the Hearty Goodfellow or The Playhouse or Rock City, Nottingham was a perfectly peaceful place. More like a quaint country town. Today it's a wee bit different, most definitely a city, overflowing with students - I like it more now.......cough! But I still have fond memories of the bouncers at Rock City. Back in the day they were so considerate, always ready to give me a nice "bounce around" between the glass double doors before throwing me down the stairs - happy days - lovely people.

So here we are again. The Rescue Rooms, post smoking ban, with the smoke machine blowing out smoke like there's no tomorrow. What a perverse world we live in. Now my memory may be shot but I can remember exactly who I saw here last. It was Hugh Cornwell. He started the night off with "I Feel Like a Wog" - nice welcoming track. And I know exactly when it was. Cos Hugh Cornball left the Shanglers in 1990, so I can say with absolute certainty that the last time I came to the Rescue Rooms was sometime between 1990 and 2010. See I've still got 20/20 recollection, no problem with my memory. Actually come to think about it, the last time I came to the Rescue Rooms was to see WIRE, wasn't it?

Anyway up first came Madensuyu. An industrial two piece from Belgium - drums & predominately guitar - with a bit of keys and trickery here and there for ambient good measure. For the entire 30 minutes they played they were an absorbing listen, and just like everyone else that had struggled away from the bar to watch them I was rapt. OK it's known, I'm not a great advocate of SOUNDSCAPES. If I want a SOUNDSCAPES I'll listen to Gustav Mahler or Dexter Gordon or Augustus Pablo (I think that covers it). And at first I thought, shit, these guys were going to do SOUNDSCAPES - great ambient washes of nothingness - but I was very very wrong. What Madensuyu conjured up were MINDSCAPES, and pretty bloody scary ones too. The drums were given a right royal flailing and the guitars got a shredding they won't forget in a hurry. Both protagonists used their voices - singing, speaking & as instruments - And even though these Belgies dished out some good humoured banter in between the songs, everything they served up musically was darkly unnerving and unique, without ever being clever or contrived - GO LISTEN.

Now it would be fair to say that on the night not everything went to plan for WIRE. They shuffled on bedecked in obligatory black, ok. But even before they got to the "get go" there was no set list for bassist Mr Graham Lewis. Who forgot that! No set list was found. Happy? Mr Lewis was not. Then mid-set an amp blew up and the un-folically challenged kid of a rhythm guitarist was lost for a track and a half. Also Colin Newman couldn't remember the lyrics to the title track of the new album. "To find the healing red barked trees" was strangely switched to "to find the red barked healing trees" But shit happens and that is why live music is still f**cking King!

Most of what WIRE did was given over to giving their immaculately produced and constructed new album "Red Barked Tree" a good old fashioned roughing up. First the opener "Clay" was hardened up and thrashed out, before "Please Take" had all the catchy popiness well and truly shook out of it and injected with a good deal of threat and menace by the vocals of Lewis. The stand out tracks in the set for me were "Spent" from 2003's Send LP; two from the Strays EP - the no nonsense punk bantering "Underwater Experiences" and the progressively unfurling "Boiling Boy"; and also the hypnosis by way of rhythmic adherence found in "Moreover" was pretty damn good too.

By the time Pink Flag was doled out and gratefully received, it was clear to even the most woolly minded that WIRE unlike most seventies punk and post punk survivors have no need (at present) to revisit their past works album by album. Memories are all well and good, but with Red Barked Tree WIRE are most definitely in the moment, amnesiacs beware, blink and you'll have missed it. RBT is their finest hour, Part II.

Ed.

Lewis in the moment.