Live Review: Wire, Usurper Of Modern Medicine

It's not every day (or night) you get to see one of the founding acts of a musical movement. Mondayitis aside, Wire's stopover in Perth was set to be pretty revelatory.

Usurper Of Modern Medicine kicked things off, trying to fill the big festival stage as much as possible. The band's undeniable style, fine-tuned in houses and sheltered stages, sounded slightly off-time as it washed out in the big, open space, but the three seemed to be enjoying it nevertheless. They blasted out a range of tunes to the growing crowd, finishing off with latest single Motorola Borealis.

By the time Wire took to the stage, the audience was already amped-up thanks to the combination of suspenseful gap music, some pretty gnarly arena-rock lights and an anti-Monday dismissal of sobriety. As usual for a Perth Fest gig, there was a heartening mix of young and old, with a few of the elders taking the whole “punk show” aesthetic to the next level. Blasting off with Marooned, the old theatrics and direct energy of the ridiculously influential four-piece smacked a knowing grin on everyone's faces. 23 Years Too Late followed, ensuring this wasn't going to be a one-act show; sure enough, Wire pretty much covered their entire history, with Colin Newman and Graham Lewis switching vocal duties ably while Robert Grey belted out extended rhythms (while looking slightly like a bobble-head) and Matthew Sims fanned around in wavy-haired glory. There were big cheers for a couple of tracks; 12XU, Smash and Magic Bullet were clear stand-outs. Throughout the entire set, the band kept stoic composure, still managing to jam out after almost 40 years. A big encore, featuring built-out versions of Send and Spent, capped it all off. To the drunken mums doing fly-kicks in the crowd: I hope you got home okay.