Fugazi in Concert at the Ogden Theatre, Denver in 2001 (Getty)
"When we play, the challenge is there: Can we throw down? Can we return the favor? Because so many bands have blown our minds over the years, can we return that favor to people out there? That's still something that feels very straight up to me." — Ian MacKaye, in the 1997 Fugazi documentary Instrument
In September 1987, Fugazi were a new band comprising Ian MacKaye, co-founder of Dischord Records and hardcore punk icon on vocals and guitar, drummer Brendan Canty, a well-respected D.C.-scene regular who hadn't done much touring, and bassist Joe Lally, who had previously been a roadie. They were quickly joined by singer, then singer-guitarist Guy Piccotto, Canty's bandmate in Rites of Spring, One Last Wish, and Happy Go Licky and a dazzlingly charismatic figure in his own right.
In November 2002, they played their final show, as an indefinite hiatus followed. In between, they made two EPs, two seven-inches, and seven albums, became one of the best, if not the, best live rock bands of their era, embodying the DIY ideal as punk broke in every possible way. They made slavish fans out of everyone from R.E.M. and the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Pearl Jam and Sleater-Kinney and thousands of smaller bands whose names you might never know.
They made these fans, they got that good, that deft, that fluid, by touring constantly. They toured for weeks on end for years on end, booking all of these shows themselves. According to Dischord, over the course of 15 years and one month, they played about 1,000 shows — that averages out to about 83 shows a year, usually in four-to-eight-week chunks, fall and spring tours with local gigs in between. They recorded about 800 of them.
On December 1, Dischord launched the Fugazi Live Series, which will eventually feature all of those; 130 are up now, 30 previously available as a CD series, including their first and their last and gigs. Each costs five bucks, the same price as the actual tickets to the shows. Suddenly, fans can dive and swim in these shows like Scrooge McDuck in his money vault.
The archive isn't just a bunch of MP3s, though, it's a living, evolving document of an entire subculture, encouraging contributions and remembrances from photographers and fans who attended the shows. Being a DIY lifer means being organized and observant, and MacKaye was a rigorous note-taker. The vast majority of gigs listed include venue capacity and opening bands.
First gig? Three hundred at the Wilson Center with the locally established Marginal Man, Ignition (Ian's brother Alec MacKaye's band), and Fire Party (which featured Amy Pickering, who often sang female POV lyrics on "Suggestion" when they were in town). Last? London's Forum with Buff Medways, no note of attendance, though its capacity at the time was about 2,100.
In between, they played in front of 50 (third-ever show, at Cat's Cradle in Chapel Hill) and 5,000 (30th anniversary of the March on Washington on the D.C. Mall). The largest indoor crowds they would play to were about 3,500 people (Congress Theater in Chicago, where I recall they nearly got their lunch eaten by the Ex.)
To be in the rooms or fields documented here was to feel like taking on the world was not only possible, but a duty one could enthusiastically embrace.
A history of 1990s American punk can be found here, before and after Nirvana. In the late '80s and early 90s, they were playing with punk and hardcore bands (Operation Ivy and Verbal Assault in Rhode Island; Beatnigs, Yeastie Girlz, Crimpshrine in Berekely) and the second wave of post-hardcore bands (Former Big Boy Tim Kerr's funk outfit Bad Mutha Goose in Texas, Jackonuts in Athens, Georgia, Thatcher on Acid and Chumbawumba in Leeds, England.)
By the mid-‘90s, they were playing to about a thousand people a night, sometimes a little less, sometimes twice as many. A 1993 gig at the Utah State Fairpark Coliseum with Rocket From the Crypt and Clawhammer drew 2,000. Crowd surfing, known to everyone thanks to MTV, became the rule rather than the exception.
In the late '90s, as alt rock disintegrated and hardcore became a cult music rather than stepping-stone, they went out with late '90s indie acts such as Blonde Redhead and played one-offs with bands they inspired (90 Day Men, Promise Ring). Crowds that were once antagonistic were, ten or so years later, adoring. Kids were standing rather than slamming.
And it's not just that Fugazi toured all the time: They headlined all the time. No opening for a major label band in a shed over the summer, no heading out with a bigger indie act, no festivals with Hole and Pavement.
They sold out or nearly sold out entire tours as headliners to the biggest rooms they felt comfortable playing, 83 or so shows a year, for 15 solid years, for between $5 and $7 a head. (By the way: they also did this without using set lists or playing covers.) I can't think of another band that has accomplished anything quite like that.
