Bittersweet Cacophony

The Babygirl in question:

#He’s confused but he got the spirit (maybe…)

Bonus, later that day: 

Photo © by Andre Hernandez

Fugazi, Showcase Special Events, San Antonio, TX USA 11/18/1995 (FLS #761)

Even though I set my sights on the US leg of the 2002 tour for the time being, it is damn tempting to go wandering the Fugazi live archive and to indulge in the first interesting recording that comes your way (and there are plenty of those).

Having recently visited the (last) gig in San Antonio, Texas from 2002, and having revisited the (first) one from 1990, I downloaded the other two shows that took place there as well and listened to the one from the tail end of the USA / Canada tour in the fall of 1995 straight away.

The running time of this recording sits at 1 hour and 20 minutes which is nothing out of the ordinary. However, since it only offers a rather short selection of 16 live tracks, it tells the listener something about the turn of events on this particular occasion.

After polite introductory remarks and a bit of praise for a couple of local food joints and a bookstore, things pretty much go haywire fast as both Ian and Guy get into some altercations, calling out an “angry young man flipping the bird” for disrespecting the meet-and-greet and being a “sad sad square” as well as reiterating that they “come to play music and definitely not come to play soundtrack to stupid violent bullshit”, offering full refunds right off the bat for those in disagreement and apologizing in advance to those who come to listen to the music for “ending up to talk a lot to about five fucking people in the middle of the room”, imploring those of good will to have some patience.

Alas. As soon as set opener Cassavetes draws to an end, Ian addresses the “crowd-surfing nonsense” before further taunting his interlocutor. Merchandise follows suit yet while the last note still rings out, Guy urges the audience to “step the fuck back because this barrier is coming down” which takes some time to fix while the band addresses a couple of people in the audience, invites some of them to come on up to get their 5 dollars back and has them leave the venue.

The band then miraculously makes it through Target, Birthday Pony and Last Chance For A Slow Dance undisturbed, after which the confrontations and bad vibes further escalate.

Returning The Screw clocks in at 11+ minutes and is “definitely the longest version of that song [the band] ever played, congratulations.” By the time the songs ends, the show has been stopped no less than 2 more times, multiple people have been referred to the door after a refund, one guy gets called up to the microphone to publicly apologize for kicking a woman in the face, and even Joe steps in to confront some knuckleheads.

Bulldog Front (tagged “Beautiful Child” by The Blow Monkeys: “you’re such a beautiful child, you’re so young and so winsome, you drive me wild”) appropriately ensues since it mirrors the adversarial mood of the evening. It sounds great, but is cut short because the band throws out another idiot for fighting.

Going into Bed For The Scraping, Ian adds it’s an appropriate song, “it’s all about good dance steps you know, figure out how to move your body according to what you hear, it’s about putting your [inaudible] steps with a sort of movement and rhythm you know, here let me show you [some cheers].”

Cool versions of Two Beats Off (tagged “The Place I love” by The Jam)  and By You (during which another guy gets to go) follow.

Before concluding the main set with the combo Long Division into Blueprint, Ian elaborates, “you know, I just figured it out, we all woke up today and everybody was feeling really stiff and kind of in a bad mood, I think it’s the weather, because I can tell you one thing for damn sure, there are a lot of people in very bad moods out here tonight, […] so here’s a soothing number, so we can try to all figure out how we an all tolerate each other for another, say 20 or 30 minutes.”

After a little impromptu jam, Waiting Room ushers in a memorable encore (notice how Forensic Scene transitions smoothly into Long Distance Runner) which fortunately plays out uninterrupted and gets dedicated to “everybody here who has been so fucking patient with this nonsense.”

Looking over the set list, Red Medicine is the main go-to for the night (6), followed by Repeater (4), In on the Kill Taker (3), 7 Songs EP (2) and Steady Diet of Nothing (1). This includes the last out of just 6 performances of Last Chance For A Slow Dance on this leg of the 1995 tour, and rather rare 1995 renderings of Bulldog Front and Reprovisional (which includes some unknown song referencing).

A great sounding recording which will be particularly of interest to those who prefer their dose of Fugazi on the edgy side of things.

The set list: