This gig dates back to the European Fugazi tour in the Fall of 1990 and is set in Barcelona, the capital of the autonomous region of Catalonia. An amazing city I have come to know a bit and appreciate a whole damn lot over the years.

It turns out to be the only Fugazi date in Spain at the time, or as Ian mentions, “I know some of you came very far, thank you very much, next time we’ll be sure to play many places, not just one, in Spain.” He then dedicates the set to “the mafia that runs the society of music publishing” before Brendan busts into the Brendan #1 instrumental.

The KGB venue turns out to be a one-off experience as well, a venue reportedly located in the basement of an old textile factory since 1984, in the Gracia district of Barcelona, which hosts alternative, rumba and DJ sessions.

What is particularly remarkable about this recording is that it not only features a complete live rendering of the debut full-length Repeater album, but throws in 2 out of 3 songs from the 3 Songs 7 inch (which have been released as bonus tracks on Repeater) to boot.

As such, this recordings is pretty much unprecedented as far as I can tell at this point, even though the Repeater album in itself (the 11 tracks) has been performed in its entirety on a number of European occasions (see for instance the September 3, October 12, October 17, October 19 or November 4 shows this same tour).

The sound quality is arguably very good and enjoyable indeed. A number of tracks do suffer some sonic anomalies but nothing too disruptive or annoying, except maybe for Brendan #1, Margin Walker (which leaves a rather fleeting impression altogether) or Bad Mouth.

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The recording totals to no less than 23 live songs including, as mentioned, all 11 tracks from the Repeater album, 4 tracks off of (the 1991) Steady Diet of Nothing album, 4 songs from the Margin Walker EP, 2 songs from the 7 Songs debut EP and 2 songs from the 3 Songs 7 inch.

The band puts in an overall ardent and convincing performance, plus it is a pleasure to overhear Brendan from behind the drum kit on a number of occasions, urging his band members on, a relentless whip.

A couple of songs stand out in my opinion. These include Styrofoam (note the prolonged intro), Turnover, Waiting Room, the familiar combo (yet early at the time since Steady Diet had not been released) Long Division into Blueprint (delivered notably slower and more true to the studio version as compared to later live versions) or Shut the Door which provides yet another example of Joe’s soulful skills on bass.

To conclude, and considering that the origins of the Catalan independence movement or the Catalan separatist movement can be traced back a couple of centuries and yet another independence referendum has been held as recent as September 27, 2015, Guy’s interest in the region at the time appear as pertinent as ever, “we had a really fucking great day here in Barcelona today, walked around, checked it out, it’s kinda cool cause the whole tour we’ve been, the guys in the band, the crew, we’ve been reading this book, ‘Homage to Catalonia’ by George Orwell, it’s all about the Spanish Civil War and it had a lot about Barcelona in it, and it is very fucking cool to be here and checking it out.”