My favorite Wire story is this: In 1987, 10 years into their existence, the British postpunkers were getting ready to tour America for the first time. This is a band whose first three albums were already well-established in the music-dork canon, so for plenty of fans, this would've been the first chance to hear those songs played live. Wire didn't want to play those songs live. They were a band who absolutely refused to repeat themselves, in any capacity, and at that point, they were into some dubbed-out synth-experiment stuff. So, as an opening act, they brought along the Ex-Lion Tamers, a Wire tribute band that happened to feature the rock critic Jim DeRogatis on drums. Every night, the Ex-Lion Tamers would play Pink Flag, Wire's beloved 1977 debut, in full. (Their only bits of stage banter: "Side one" at the beginning of their set, "Side two" halfway through.) And so with that out of the way, Wire felt free to play whatever the hell they wanted during their headlining set. They outsourced the greatest-hits formalities. They let someone else please the crowd.