Photo © by Andrea Cover
Fugazi, Sunset Station, San Antonio, TX USA 3/29/2002 (FLS #1020)
Not too long ago I posted my entry in relation to the first and definitely memorable Fugazi show in San Antonio, Texas on May 7, 1990 at the Cameo Theater.
It turns out the band played in San Antonio three more times over the years, twice at the Showcase Special Events Center (1993 and 1995) as well as once at the Sunset Station on their last tour to date in 2002 which is the concert documented here.
There’s some more backstory to this 2002 event in a piece “Keeping It Real” by Daniel Estrada in the San Antonio Current:
“On tour behind its latest release, The Argument, Fugazi wanted desperately to make its way to San Antonio. Since Fugazi’s last show here six years ago, MacKaye lost touch with his San Antonio contact and could not secure a venue. After setting up the Austin show at Emo’s, MacKaye asked his correspondent there if he knew a potential San Antonio contact. After much research and deliberation, the correspondent gave MacKaye a phone number for Mark Fleming of the San Antonio band White Heat (former B-Side Project).
Fleming recalls: ‘I got home from work one day and the phone rang and it showed ‘unavailable’ on the caller ID. I usually don’t answer it because it’s usually telemarketers, but for some reason I answered it and the guy on the phone said… ‘My name’s Ian MacKaye from Fugazi’.’ To Fleming’s surprise, the phone call proved authentic and when asked if he could set up a venue with a couple of local acts to open the show, Fleming enthusiastically said he would.”
The recording leads the listener through some introductory remarks by the band, which includes them asking if anyone has been to the basketball game (the women’s Final Four is said to have been held at the neighboring Alamodome), laying out some ground rules for people to be on their best behavior and thanking everyone for having the band down again in San Antonio.
The band played 25 live songs in total on this occasion. Most of these are taken off of The Argument (6) and Red Medicine (5), followed by End Hits (4), Repeater (3), Furniture EP (2), 7 Songs EP (2), and with only one song each off of In on the Kill Taker, Steady Diet of Nothing and Margin Walker EP.
The show has some difficulty getting off the ground and gaining momentum due to safety concerns with people in the front getting injured due to people shoving forward, which gets addressed, and Ian calls out some people as rude and cowards as well for throwing drinks and stuff at the band from the balcony.
The performance itself feels rather hit-or-miss with some mistakes dotted around. The botched guitar play on Full Disclosure comes to mind, as well as Joe’s vocals on The Kill which are notably off (you can hear Joe apologize for the “disaster” after the song).
There are highlights as well though and I feel these include the set list flow on a number of occasions. Birthday Pony into Do You Like Me into a great version of Cashout (with some cool “sliding sounds” on the guitar intro) works well and Blueprint into Waiting Room into Burning (with some nice distortion on the vocals) shreds and is great fun! Also, it’s cool and revelatory to listen closely as the band picks up on Ian’s last guitar note that reverberates after Nightshop to go straight into Repeater.
The closing string of songs unfortunately misses coherence in my opinion which is accentuated by The Argument and Five Corporations being both incomplete and cut short. Furniture does not feel like a full-fledged set closer to me and rather surprisingly closes out the night.
To conclude it can be noted that the sound quality of the recording is really good (marked as “excellent” by the people at Dischord) once the mix settles and the volume levels balance out during the first couple of songs.
The set list:
1. Intro 2. Break 3. Number 5 4. Interlude 1 5. Sieve-Fisted Find 6. And The Same 7. Full Disclosure 8. Interlude 2 9. Birthday Pony 10. Do You Like Me 11. Cashout 12. Interlude 3 13. Oh 14. Long Division 15. The Kill 16. By You 17. Interlude 5 18. Blueprint 19. Waiting Room 20. Burning 21. Interlude 6 22. Back To Base 23. Downed City 24. Interlude 7 25. Closed Captioned 26. Nightshop 27. Repeater 28. Interlude 8 29. Arpeggiator 30. Argument 31. Five Corporations 32. Public Witness Program 33. Furniture 34. Outro
