POP MUSIC REVIEW : LIVE WIRE FLESHES OUT ITS RECORDED IMAGE

Wire is human after all.

That revelation of the British quartet’s concert Wednesday at the Variety Arts Center comes as a bit of a surprise. After all, these veterans of the first punk-rock explosion in 1977 pioneered a stark, sometimes cold minimalism that has influenced many currently influential rockers. But since Wire suspended operations in 1980 without having played locally, the group has always been something of a mystery.

Naturally, for the band’s L.A. fans, expectations were high for this show. Would Wire be cold automatons churning out dirges? Mind-bending psychedilletantes? Proper English intellectuals? Or just plain old weird ex-punks?

The answer was a little bit of each. But primarily Wire was a very electric, if not exactly kinetic, beat band. The ornate arrangements found in Wire’s latest album, “The Ideal Copy,” were replaced by very loud, very intense and often monochromatic blasts of sheer neuron-splitting sound. At the same time there was a steady rein being held on this noise--it was not random, erratic or industrial.

The tension was generated through Wire’s two unlikely frontmen: guitarist/singer Colin Newman, quirky with his sardonic smile and red suspenders; and bassist Graham Lewis, all angular intensity. Newman sang sweet and high, Lewis bayed and growled. The combination made for a band whose physical presence and alternatively hypnotic and abrasive sound kept the set--appropriately--on a tightwire.

If you want a real ideal copy, how about the opening act Ex-Lion Tamers? The young Hoboken, N.J., quartet served Wire’s history with a note-for-note version of the headliner’s first album, “Pink Flag,” and later joined its model for an encore of Jonathan Richman’s “Roadrunner.”