Wire To Wire

For its first event of the summer, New York's South Street Seaport brought British art-punkers Wire out of their long live show hiatus to kick off the season with some genuine punk rock snark. Starting off the evening by shouting, "We're Wire and you're welcome!," the band ripped through an almost seamless career-spanning set list of deconstructed and gleefully raucous songs.

Frontman Colin Newman was considerate enough to take the time between barking out "Mr. Marx's Table" and "Comet" to remind us that "the Eagles are the enemy," and bassist Graham Lewis chided the lighting guy for his epilepsy-inducing swirl of rainbow-colored craziness, but otherwise they stuck to the songs.

The show offered an incredible amount of bang for the buck (especially since it was free...), as the songs were on average less than two minutes long. All in all 20 well-chosen tunes were packed into the set, including "Our Time" and "106 Beats That," with the much-anticipated "Pink Flag" as an encore. 

It was a strange environment to see Wire in. First-timers may not have gotten their full bawdy aesthetic, what with the glow of the Pizzeria Uno logo overhead, all that fresh sea air and the majestic sailing ship flanking the stage. But the band was every bit on form, blasting energy into the packed crowd. Even better: they'll apparently be back again October, and the new song recently posted on their Web site is pretty great. -- Lavinia Jones Wright