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Fugazi - Brighton, Corn Exchange Sunday 20th October 2002 I had only seen Fugazi once before, I saw them in a tiny venue called Loppen, situated in the amazing Christiania in Copenhagen. During that show I was about two feet away from Ian MacKaye and I could really feel their energy, so I was a bit worried that seeing them in a big 1200 capacity hall might take that energy away. But on the day of the show about 14:45 I got a phone call from Stevecat saying we've got to support Fugazi tonight as The Buff Medway's have had to pull out, so I didn't end up watching their set from the crowd at a distance after all. But when their sound check begun, I realised that they still gave off a lot of energy and sounded really good in big halls, so I was happy that their set would probably be very good indeed. We asked Fugazi if it would be ok for us (the cats) to sit on the stage and watch them and they said "that's fine". So when Fugazi took to the stage I sat next to guy's amp and guitars, I had a great view of all the members. They started with the fantastic 'Number Five' and then went straight into 'Break'. From the off they were playing very tight. 'Full Disclosure' and other songs from 'The Argument' sounded really amazing live, although when they played 'The Kill' it didn't quite sound as good as I thought it would. I remember 'Bed For The Scraping' and 'Reclamation' being very intense. They were jumping all over the place during 'Furniture' and at one point during the silent parts of that song a group of people were shouting "woooo" and Ian MacKaye gave Brendan Canty a strange look, it was very funny, it was a look of confusion, I don't think he understood the "wooos". 'Merchandise' was incredible - I remember them looking really focused during that song. When Ian's guitar and the drums started the fantastic 'Burning' Guy put down his guitar and waited by his mic stand for the bass to kick in. 'Burning' is one of my favourite Fugazi songs and there I was on stage with them, it felt like a dream, I couldn't believe my luck. After that they played 'Waiting Room' and people started jumping up and down in the crowd. During the gap in the song Ian said thanks to Cat On Form, I turned round to my fellow cats and smiled, we were having the time of our lives. 'F/D' sounded incredible and really soulful and 'Smallpox Champion' was really rocking. When they came out for an encore people were shouting for 'Repeater' but they flew into 'Arpeggiator' - I love the really dark bits in that song where guy plays that really cool horrible note, they then smashed out 'Repeater' and were dancing all over the place. I remember they also played 'Turnover' and 'Long Division' near the end and they sounded great too. There wasn't any crowd trouble or stops during the show. Then all of a sudden they had finished; I could have watched them for hours. Over all, it was quite a short set for Fugazi. (I haven't listed all the songs they played though.) They are all very nice people and I had an amazing day. Dan

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