BY JUD COST

Wire, one of the great original British bands to arise from the punk firestorm of the late-'70s, slipped into San Francisco for a brilliant Sunday night show at Slim's. And the joint was jumping, with barely enough room to swing a dead cat at Johnny Rotten, if he'd been there. Which he wasn't. Needless to say, no household pets were harmed during this peaceful gathering that featured three original members of Wire: Colin Newman on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Graham Lewis on bass and vocals and  Robert Grey (formerly calling himself Robert Gotobed) on drums, abetted by excellent hired gun Matt Simms on lead guitar.

Wire was always a different breed of cat from your average U.K. crash 'n' burn outfit, anyway, most of whom had the good sense to pick the right moment to drive their band vehicle off a cliff and end it all in a spectacular ball of flames on the rocks below. I passed on the recent reunion of the Sex Pistols, poster boys for the "die young and live a pretty ugly corpse" philosophy. I was there in 1978 for their final show at San Francisco's Winterland where a scarred and bandaged Sid Vicious kicked at the punters while pretending to play his bass, and Johnny Rotten rhetorically asked the crowd as the final guitar chord was decaying, "Ever have the feeling you've been cheated?". Believe me, that was the perfect way to end it.

Unlike the same 15 songs regurgitated during the short, effective lifespan of the Pistols, you could tell from Wire's first two albums-Pink Flag and Chairs Missing-that this London-based outfit had real staying power. Newman's choked, adenoidal vocals, something like those of original Buzzcocks singer, Howard DeVoto, had that built-in sneer, ideal for a punk rock frontman. Like the Ramones, Wire also understood the beauty of brevity. "Field Day For The Sundays" from Pink Flag, took it to extremes, lasting only 28 seconds. "Lowdown" had this repetitious, almost monotonous, James Brown-like beauty to it. Then there were the first three Wire singles, a superb troika that covered a lot of ground in almost no time at all.

"1.2.X.U" ("Saw you in a mag/Kissin' a man/Saw you in a mag/Smokin' a fag/Saw you in a mag/Kissin' a fag!") was a go-for-the-jugular, acetylene-torch rocker that could have melted the welds on London Bridge. "I Am The Fly" with its peanut-brittle guitar and brain-shattering refrain ("I am the fly, I am the fly, fly in the, fly in the ointment/I take you down to say please/As you accept the next social disease") was irresistible. And "Dot Dash" with its cryptic lyrics and Morse Code secret handshake may have been the best of the lot. These guys always straddled the thin line between genius and madness.

And they still do. But they've learned to get so much more out of the basic four-man rock-band format. To prove how versatile Wire has become over the past 30 years, they didn't play anything that I recognized during their 60-minute set. Newman employed his notorious punk sneer to perfection on a few numbers. But the more abrasive material was interlaced with softer, simmering soundtrack-worthy stuff, presumably from their new album, Red Barked Tree. Simms' chiming neo-psychedelic guitar was put to good use on the slower, moodier songs, while Lewis alternated vocals with Newman in a dreamy, almost Bryan Ferry-like croon.

Tonight's show wasn't just a testimonial to one of the few bands to survive the punk rock era in (almost) one piece. This was no ceremonial victory lap, no oldies jukebox. Instead, it was a living, breathing organism that offered anyone within earshot solid evidence that Wire is still around for a very good reason.