I had been hoping that, at the triumphant pomp blast that opens ‘Adore Your Island’, Colin Newman might do a Who-esque windmill that would have been rather fitting of the song. In the end, he offered up a demi-mill that nevertheless rather suited the bouyant mood in Heaven on Sunday night. As one of the curators of the event and a participant in the Pinkflag Guitar Orchestra on the night, it’d probably be unconstitutional of me to review the gig officially… but y’know, it was an fantastic night of putting Wire into a very contemporary context. In an age of digging up the past and putting it on display unchanged, as if the gig venues of the Western World were the indie rock equivalent of the British Museum, it was refreshing to hear a band refuse to do old material, and instead play through an album that would only be commercially available the day after the gig. Wire could make sell out Heaven many times over and make a killing touring their first three albums, Don’t Look Back-style, and it’s to their credit that they take the far harder path. Change Becomes Us might initially have been a project en-route to the next Wire album after Red Barked Tree, but it seems to have set Wire a new year zero, especially with Matt Simms now fully bedded in as fourth member. He brings an interesting new twist to Wire’s music – almost as if he’s absorbed the music of artists influenced by Wire, been influenced by Wire himself, and is now injecting that back into the core. It’s all part of their intriguing, ongoing process of self-cannibalisation and evolution, perpetually moving forward.
Thanks to everyone who played Drill:London: It Hugs Back, Malka Spigel, Charlie Boyer & The Voyeurs, Mambas, Stranger Son, Comanechi, Edvard Graham Lewis, Klara Lewis, Land Observations, Scanner, Gazelle Twin, Toy, Verity Susman, Teeth Of The Sea, East India Youth.
