Fugazi have announced that, starting this month, they’re releasing a selection of their archival concert recordings on Bandcamp and streaming services. The post-hardcore luminaries are releasing the first two installments, recordings of their first-ever show on September 3, 1987, and to-date final performance on November 4, 2002, this Friday (May 2). More live concert tapes will be uploaded each month on through the end of 2025.
While this makes listening to old Fugazi live shows easier for certain fans, it’s not the first time the Washington, D.C., punks have released these recordings. The complete Fugazi Live Series archive—which includes over 800 concerts—has been and remains available online over at Dischord. The majority of those shows were recorded by Fugazi’s sound engineers, and are available to download for a small price alongside old flyers, gig photos, and general show info.
Back in 2023, a 90-minute-long collection of “crowd-sourced, fan-recorded live shows and rare archival footage” called We Are Fugazi From Washington, DC screened in a few movie theaters to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the band’s last public show. Some of the footage in that film was shot by filmmaker Lance Bangs, and tickets were, fittingly, only $5.
Fugazi went on indefinite hiatus at the end of 2002. Ian MacKaye, Joe Lally, and Brendan Canty started various side-projects over the years, including the Evens, the Messthetics, and Coriky. Meanwhile, Guy Picciotto has produced albums for Blonde Redhead, the Blood Brothers, Gossip, and many others. Fugazi have denied rumors of a reunion time and time again, but they do still play music together in private just for fun.
Read about Repeater in “The 150 Best Albums of the 1990s” and revisit the essay “Fugazi Returns… Through Opera?”
https://pitchfork.com/news/fugazi-to-release-archival-concert-recordings-on-streaming-services
