Wire – Document & Eyewitness – 1979 – 1980

Retracting the Thrown Bottle

For many punk bands, a live performance will add an entire new level to their show experience, and with art punk pioneers Wire, they saw their time on the stage as an opportunity to push the boundaries of what they had created in the studio. Following their successful 1979 release 154, and the end of their association with record label EMI, the British punks were sick and tired of playing the same songs over and over and decided to shake things up whether the audience wanted it or not. Thus was born Document & Eyewitness, which was first released in 1981.

The first 12 songs on the record (a track listing swap from the original release) are from a show at Electric Ballroom in February 1980 during which Wire strayed entirely from their expected sound, performing new music and putting on Dadaist cabaret. The show was immediately followed by a six year hiatus. Playing to an increasingly hostile crowd, including one projectile bottle during an unnamed “Instrumental” track, the performance has become a part of punk lore and makes for a truly fascinating listen. The rest of the album consists of live performances from a show at Notre Dame Hall in July 1979, during which they played almost exclusively unreleased or otherwise rare songs, many of which were reworked and recorded for Wire’s most recent album, Change Becomes Us in 2013, a few other live and rare tracks such as “Midnight Bahnhof Cafe” from a limited press 7″ and a handful of rehearsal recordings that give the whole album a unique, behind the scenes feel.

Document & Eyewitness is by no means a record you should listen to when you want some fun post-punk to jam out to, even if Wire is your go-to band for that sort of thing, but all the ways in which it is alienating and jarring creates an atmosphere unlike basically any other live album you could find. Wire is one of the first, one of the best and one of the weirdest punk bands that England has to offer, and this re-release shows new fans, as well as old, why we should sit down and pay attention to them.