Title
Fugazi Still Fierce, Still Independent
Subject
Fugazi's individuality
Description
This review focus's on Fugazi's ability to hold an audience hand have a high-energy show over the span of a long time for a band. In addition, it illuminates how, even after many years and successes, Fugazi has managed to remain on an independent label apart from the music industry.
Creator
Scott McLennan
Source
Telegram & Gazette
Publisher
Globe Newspaper Company, Inc.
Date
May 7, 1997
Contributor
[no text]
Rights
Copyright Worcester Telegram & Gazette May 7, 1997
Relation
[no text]
Format
[no text]
Language
[no text]
Type
Review
Identifier
[no text]
Coverage
[no text]
Original Format
[no text]
Text
CLINTON - Fugazi, the fiercely independent quartet from Washington, D.C., proved in a concert Monday night the importance for artists to stay fierce and independent.
The band's 1-hour 45-minute show in the St. John's Gym was a showpiece of passionate declarations and social commentaries. As the band approaches its 10th anniversary - still running free of music industry auspices, rules or practices - it is clear that an intuitive inner-communication system is connecting the players. Jams took grand shape, and rowdy songs stopped and turned on a single beat.
The audience of about 700 took it in with awe, watching and cheering it more like a reverent jazz audience than raucous punk crowd.
And that was the victory of the evening - rounded out by exquisite sets by Cast Iron Hike and Branch Manager - the freeing of so-called new rock from the commercial trappings slapped onto a scene that once thrived underground. Nothing looked or felt like it was learned from MTV, or forced into memory by countless plays on commercial rock radio.
THEMSELVES
Fugazi's members - Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto on guitars and vocals, Joe Lally on bass and Brendan Canty on drums - created the context of their show simply by being themselves. MacKaye's drill sergeant bluster played off Picciotto's tortured poet, while the steadfast Lally made waxen John Entwistle seem downright perky in the league of bass players. And Canty's red face beaming from the drum kit looked as if it pop at any moment.
MacKaye and Picciotto jumped and flailed about, giving form to the cathartic release of the music.
The band-to-audience patter also helped set the mood. MacKaye plugged a rally for "homes not prisons," as well as took a shot at the Boston concert industry for effectively keeping his band out of the city by not allowing low-priced all-ages concerts in rock rooms. "But we're happy to be here. This is the essence of a good thing," MacKaye said to launch the concert. And from that moment on there was nothing on earth, or in a church-run gymnasium with a jerry-rigged sound system that occasionally went haywire, that could suppress the energy of the music.
Fugazi flipped through its lengthy catalog, starting off with the anthemic "Merchandise," which proclaims, "You are not what you own." Several cuts off last year's "Red Medicine" made up concert highlights, particularly when the recalcitrant Lally stepped forward to sing the bristling "By You."
Several intricate jams linked the songs, with each instrumental passage crushing the notion that punk rock is musically limited. The rewards one walks away with from a Rage Against the Machine show (powerful and pointed commentary) and a Phish concert (dazzling musicianship) were given together and more abundantly in Fugazi's set, which linked hearts and minds in the good fight.
Branch Manager, another D.C. band that records for the Fugazi-run Dischord record label, was a genuine find. The eclectic trio mixed up humor and musical styles for a sublime set that recalled the fury of early Who and cerebral gunslinging of Frank Zappa.
Cast Iron Hike, a band born in Clinton, proved it could hold its own with seasoned players, adding a hot set and some local pride to the night. Cast Iron Hike's national debut on Victory Records, "Watch It Burn," has been pushed back for a June release, after which the band can be seen at the Warped Festival stop taking place in Northampton on July 27.
The band's 1-hour 45-minute show in the St. John's Gym was a showpiece of passionate declarations and social commentaries. As the band approaches its 10th anniversary - still running free of music industry auspices, rules or practices - it is clear that an intuitive inner-communication system is connecting the players. Jams took grand shape, and rowdy songs stopped and turned on a single beat.
The audience of about 700 took it in with awe, watching and cheering it more like a reverent jazz audience than raucous punk crowd.
And that was the victory of the evening - rounded out by exquisite sets by Cast Iron Hike and Branch Manager - the freeing of so-called new rock from the commercial trappings slapped onto a scene that once thrived underground. Nothing looked or felt like it was learned from MTV, or forced into memory by countless plays on commercial rock radio.
THEMSELVES
Fugazi's members - Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto on guitars and vocals, Joe Lally on bass and Brendan Canty on drums - created the context of their show simply by being themselves. MacKaye's drill sergeant bluster played off Picciotto's tortured poet, while the steadfast Lally made waxen John Entwistle seem downright perky in the league of bass players. And Canty's red face beaming from the drum kit looked as if it pop at any moment.
MacKaye and Picciotto jumped and flailed about, giving form to the cathartic release of the music.
The band-to-audience patter also helped set the mood. MacKaye plugged a rally for "homes not prisons," as well as took a shot at the Boston concert industry for effectively keeping his band out of the city by not allowing low-priced all-ages concerts in rock rooms. "But we're happy to be here. This is the essence of a good thing," MacKaye said to launch the concert. And from that moment on there was nothing on earth, or in a church-run gymnasium with a jerry-rigged sound system that occasionally went haywire, that could suppress the energy of the music.
Fugazi flipped through its lengthy catalog, starting off with the anthemic "Merchandise," which proclaims, "You are not what you own." Several cuts off last year's "Red Medicine" made up concert highlights, particularly when the recalcitrant Lally stepped forward to sing the bristling "By You."
Several intricate jams linked the songs, with each instrumental passage crushing the notion that punk rock is musically limited. The rewards one walks away with from a Rage Against the Machine show (powerful and pointed commentary) and a Phish concert (dazzling musicianship) were given together and more abundantly in Fugazi's set, which linked hearts and minds in the good fight.
Branch Manager, another D.C. band that records for the Fugazi-run Dischord record label, was a genuine find. The eclectic trio mixed up humor and musical styles for a sublime set that recalled the fury of early Who and cerebral gunslinging of Frank Zappa.
Cast Iron Hike, a band born in Clinton, proved it could hold its own with seasoned players, adding a hot set and some local pride to the night. Cast Iron Hike's national debut on Victory Records, "Watch It Burn," has been pushed back for a June release, after which the band can be seen at the Warped Festival stop taking place in Northampton on July 27.