Fugazi, Salle des Fêtes, Kingersheim, France 6/10/1995 (FLS #0685)
This one was brought to my attention by @alexmitrani who earmarked it as a personal favorite. Having listened to the recording repeatedly for the last couple of days, I certainly found plenty of strongpoints to enjoy.
The tape documents a one-off performance in Kingersheim, a small commune in northeastern France. It was the last out of ten shows Fugazi played on French soil in 1995 (it appears Ian MacKaye was unusually mistaken when expressing his praise and gratitude for the country during the show, mentioning a total of 12 gigs in France in 1995).
Fugazi performed no less than 28 songs on this particular night. And considering the running time of the recording clocks in at around 1 h 44 mins, this will surely be one of the longer shows the band ever played.
The opening of the set is a scorcher and the band comes out swinging, going balls out. The performance is pretty much on point and ardent throughout, yet particular highlights in my book include the wild Turnover breakdown, Joe’s bass driving songs such as Bed For The Scraping, Long Division and Long Distance Runner, and a phenomenal encore 2.
The set list includes a high dosage of Red Medicine tracks (10) and most of their earlier work is thrown in the mix in equal measure: In on the Kill Taker (4), Steady Diet of Nothing (4), Repeater (5), 7 Songs debut EP (4) and the 3 Songs seven-inch (1). The Margin Walker EP is the apparent absentee here.
Note that this show features the only (!) live version of Greed in 1995, and includes rare 1995 sightings of Break-In, KYEO and Glueman as well (here even with Combination Lock - which actually appears to be encore 3 by itself - to close out the performance).
Banter is scarce yet portrays the band in an upbeat mood, not considering the occasional rebuke drawn by the local lighting tech. Note that Guy addresses the patrons in French most of the time, reminiscent of, entre autres, the phenomenal Fugazi show in Bordeaux 1992.
The only thing that takes my enjoyment of this recording and show down a notch is that the audio, particularly of the instrumentation, is stretched a bit thin and trebly, hinting at the audience source of the recording.
Video footage of this concert is available, and can be accessed through the following archival link: https://archive.org/details/fugazi1995-06-10
Much obliged @alexmitrani.
The set list:
1. Intro 2. Merchandise 3. Public Witness Program 4. Greed 5. Do You Like Me 6. Interlude 1 7. Bed For The Scraping 8. Walken's Syndrome 9. Reclamation 10. Interlude 2 11. Turnover 12. Interlude 3 13. Back To Base 14. Downed City 15. Shut the Door 16. Waiting Room 17. Break-In 18. Bad Mouth 19. Give Me The Cure 20. Interlude 4 21. By You 22. Interlude 5 23. Forensic Scene 24. Long Division 25. Runaway Return 26. Interlude 6 27. Long Distance Runner 28. Encore 1 29. Fell, Destroyed 30. Great Cop 31. Blueprint 32. Encore 2 33. KYEO 34. Target 35. Sweet and Low 36. Glueman 37. Combination Lock 38. Outro
