I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this show, twice. Expect a somewhat lo-fi sound and you might enjoy it too. It sounds a bit tinny but on the plus side it seems quite nicely balanced, all the parts of the music can be heard clearly as can the audience. It comes across as a good-natured, lively performance. Don't let the 'poor' sound quality rating put you off!

Eleventh and last show of the 1998 spring US tour, and the only time Fugazi performed at the Teamsters’ Union Hall in Baltimore. A Benefit for Homeless Persons Representation Project. Although the audio quality of this recording has been rated as “poor”, and rightly so considering the high-pitched, shrill and thin sound, a much better sounding video of the show has surfaced on YouTube recently (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9EVxq-lWY8). As per Guy Picciotto,

“I wanted to point this video out to you that just went up on YOUTUBE earlier this year. It is a much better representation of this show ( one of our personal favorites ) then you can get from the recording we made available online through our Archive which is pretty poor in quality. Often I don't often find much to enjoy from videos of us playing on YouTube but this one really does capture something in terms of the pleasure we got from those moments when we were able to lock in together musically.”

And so it goes. At the beginning of the show, Ian briefly portrays the Flood Zone security debacle in Richmond, VA on the night prior, and concludes that “anyway, here we are back in the halls again, back where we should be anyway and it is a pleasure”, before launching into Back to Base and maintaining a fast pace well into the set.

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The focus is on all things music here, with little to no distractions for the rest of the gig, little to no talk or banter. They just play, and get lost in the interplay, while both Guy and Ian treat mere lookers-on to signature guitar play and (dance) moves to boot.

While this set list does not particularly win me over personally on paper, as far as the selection of a number of songs is concerned, I have to admit that it gels damn fine live on this occasion, and meshes organically. Presented are 21 songs, with 11 songs taken off of End Hits (only Caustic Acrostic and Foreman’s Dog are missing here), with just a couple of tracks from the preceding albums Red Medicine (4), Kill Taker (2), Steady Diet (1), Repeater (1), Margin Walker (1) and 7 Songs (1).

Note that Jerry Busher joins for some heavy-hitting dual percussion on Burning and Arpeggiator, as well as on trumpet during Floating Boy, which was routine by 1998. Recap Modotti and By You are played back-to-back and offer a double dose of Joe on vocals. Set closer Two Beats Off is cut short, unfortunately.

Whereas Guy relates the meaning of the song Place Position to the fact that “right now, Congress is considering some kind of law where labour workers from other countries can be brought over here and then work for cheap, without any access to any kind of immigration status or any kind of protections here, something they haven’t done since the ‘20s or ‘30s and it is completely insane, this is a song about our completely insane immigration policies”, it is interesting to mention that he still dubs the song “April March” even though the album End Hits had been released some two weeks before.

19 minutes of this show can be watched here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVV1KiPsQ5Q

The one and only time I was able to see Fugazi live was at this show.

After the show, two audience members needed a ride home to Towson. It was completely out of my way as I lived in Annapolis, but I didn't care. I just felt that good after the show.