In the pantheon of alternative greats, Wire are now rightly afforded permanent membership, still firing on all cylinders with much spare fuel in the tank to burn - yet it was not always so. During their first period of activity in the late 1970s, their brief, brittle compositions, artfully oblique lyrics and cerebral yet confrontational approach – entire sets of unreleased songs, audience interaction limited to “we don’t play requests” – saw them cast outside the new orthodoxy of post punk and new wave, playing for a dedicated cult audience and releasing three seminal albums that have had immesurably more acclaim attached to them retrospectively than was ever voiced at the time. In those dark days of rock TV being limited to the last slot before closedown once a week (if you were lucky), Mark 1 Wire never had a look in, and aside from the odd three minute mime-along or micro-interview, broadcast quality footage of the band during this furiously creative period is limited to this hour long studio performance from February 1979 for German show “Rockpalast”. Luckily, that night they were at their sharpest, playing the set they were taking on tour in the period between ‘Chairs Missing’ and ‘154’, and after much wrangling this often-bootlegged recording is now officially available, in video digitally cloned from the broadcast master, augmented by fully remastered audio. Also included is the never-screened 20 minute interview with English journalist, broadcaster and Rockpalast presenter Alan Bangs. As an added bonus for anyone wishing to take in the delights of the incisive 20 song set in a room without a television, the extra audio CD contains all the music and none of the talk. Reissue (in updated slimline packaging) of this continually in demand classic live document, originally released in 2004 and out of print since 2010.