We Are Fugazi From Washington D.C. Reviewed: Fan-documented portrait of DIY heroes

We Are Fugazi From Washington D.C.

★★★★

DOC’N’ROLL FILMS.

After Fugazi’s intense rendition of And The Same at an open air 1989 benefit show at Washington D.C.’s Dupont Circle, a camera microphone picks up a suitably committed send-off from the event organisers: “Think about what you heard and felt today, and on the way out help pick up.”

If Ian MacKaye’s first band – DC hardcore firebrands Minor Threat – set austere new standards for punk rock lifestyles and moshpit ethics, his next major outfit raised the bar further. A retrospective pieced together from fans’ videocam footage, We Are Fugazi From Washington D.C. shows how from 1987 to 2002, MacKaye and fellow frontman Guy Picciotto created a sinuous new post-hardcore sound, and set standards for uncommercial success that most of their grunge-era contemporaries chose to ignore.

Fugazi raised money for noble causes, refused to engage with major labels, kept ticket prices low and venues modest, declined to sell merch, never used a set list, and eschewed dry ice and fancy stage lighting. During his Minor Threat days, MacKaye’s DC crew had a reputation for being physically confrontational, but by the time Fugazi hit their peak, the band were also eager to keep some of the uglier elements of male bonding out of shows. At a Maryland concert, MacKaye interrupts a version of Burning Too to call out inconsiderate lunkheads. “How many people up here have been kicked in the head so far tonight?” he asks. “Take off your boots if you're going to stagedive.”

A natural evangelist – his father, tellingly, was a religion and ethics writer for the Washington Post – MacKaye felt punk should set an example and encourage social change. However, as a snatch of interview in this film shows, he could also veer a little pious. “If I was a baker I would bake bread for people who were hungry,” he says earnestly. “If I was a carpenter I'd make houses for people who need houses.”

Fugazi earned a large, intense following and their fingerprints are all over the math-rock and emo explosions that followed, but their cultural footprint is possibly not as big as it should be, with Louisville sluggers Slint – younger, and with a more compelling/less hectoring back story – an easier sell for later generations.

In that sense, We Are Fugazi From Washington D.C. feels like an attempt to snatch back Fugazi’s place in history by celebrating “their live prowess,” as a slide in the opening sequence puts it. Certainly, there is plenty to marvel at. A 1988 version of signature tune Waiting Room and a 1989 take of Margin Walker capture the ‘tops-off’ fervour and the Gang Of Four intensity of the Brendan Canty-Joe Lally rhythm section, while a two-drummer assault on Ex-Spectator recorded at the University Of Richmond’s freezing cold Greek Amphitheater shows the mature Fugazi’s mastery of capture/release dynamics.

Thanking volunteer stagehands at their final US show at Washington’s Fort Reno in 2002, MacKaye stumbles on the band’s guiding principle: "You did good and that’s more important than money.” We Are Fugazi From Washington D.C. shows how thoroughly good they were. Out of step with the worldly, Fugazi won hearts and minds and then tidied up after themselves.

What We Learned From We Are Fugazi From Washington D.C.

We Are Fugazi From Washington D.C. is being screened as part of the Doc N Roll film festival. More screening info HERE

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