Wire @ The Arches, 11 Sep

135 compulsory reasons to go and see Wire: (1) They are Wire (2) They are still playing music after 30 odd (odd being the operative word here) years (3) They were post-punk before the fall of punk itself (4) They can be challenging (5) They can be easy to listen to (6) Their 1977 debut LP Pink Flag, together with the band’s two subsequent LPs (Chairs Missing and 154), turned punk-rock on its head, subverted genres, fragmented songwriting, dabbled in art, dabbled in pop, and made history (7) They consistently and compulsively reinvent themselves—from album to album, from song to song, from hiatus to hiatus (8) They could go on another hiatus at any point (which would make it their fourth) and, who knows, it could be their last (9) They have a good sense of humour (135) Their studio albums combined contain a total of 126 songs, most of which are glorious, some of which they will play at their show, and all of which are potential reasons on their own to see them play. It all adds up. [Jorge Marticorena]