Wire @ Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY
Photos and review courtesy of Edwina Hay | March 11 2020
The influential punk band Wire is currently touring the US in support of their 17th album, Mind Hive. The tour brought the English band to Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, NY for two shows on Wednesday, March 11th and Thursday, March 12th. Both nights featured support by a rotating Wire member DJing for the audience at 8PM. On Wednesday night, we were lucky to have Robert Grey (Wire’s drummer) play a music set that I truly wasn’t expecting or experienced before. An early song in his set featured a harpsichord, another featured foghorns (“Song For Our Ancestors” by Steve Miller Band), and another was the familiar “Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major” by Yo-Yo Ma, and we also heard Jimi Hendrix in conversation with Dick Cavett after Hendrix’s performance of the National Anthem.
After he was done DJing, Wire took the stage promptly at 9:15PM with bassist Graham Lewis addressing the crowd with “Thanks for turning out,” and vocalist/guitarist Colin Newman remarking “What strange circumstances we find ourselves in,” alluding to the pandemic of COVID-19 (a.k.a. Coronavirus). There were many people in attendance of their first night in Brooklyn but Coronavirus was on all of our minds and may have explained why it wasn’t a sold out show for the long-running band.
Beginning their set with a song from 1989, “The Offer,” Wire transitioned to “Be Like Them,” the first track on 2020’s Mind Hive. The quartet of Newman, Lewis, Grey, and guitarist Matthew Simms presented songs both old and new, fervently and loudly to an enthusiastic audience. I was absolutely elated when they performed “I Should Have Known Better” the first song from their third record, 154, that features Graham Lewis on vocals, another favorite, “French Film Blurred,” off their second record Chairs Missing, and people near me were very jubilant when “Ex-Lion Tamer” from their debut Pink Flag was performed, dancing and singing along with the band.
Before the show on Wednesday night, Wire announced that they are releasing a vinyl only album for Record Store Day called 10:20 and will tour the US west coast in October. As Coronavirus dominates the news and impacts our lives more and more each day, it felt wonderful to briefly escape it all with such a momentous band and their music for two hours while I washed my hands thoroughly in between sets.
