In these days of sketchy websites, my friends and I got some bad information that this show was in Charles Town, WV. We spent about 2 hours driving around until someone told us that this club was in Charleston (5 hours away). Cracked the engine block on my 86 Sunbird on the way home. Memorable evening and we never even saw the show.

The Evens did play Charleston about 7 years ago and I was in the band that opened for them. They were gracious and patient. It was a fine evening.

Hey, there I am in the front row. BTW, I gave Ian the $5 to throw that guy out. Good times!

Even though this show is off to an unfortunate start since Ian is barely audible during the first couple of songs, and some guys are shown the exit after being a nuisance, the pieces of the puzzle do come together after the mix and unrest settles during Interlude 1.
From then on out, this is a solid performance throughout, nothing spectacular or out of the ordinary, but definitely consistent and balanced. Note in this regard that most songs (5) are taken from the End Hits album, followed by Red Medicine (4) and the preceding albums (13 songs, Repeater, Steady Diet and In On The Kill Taker) thrown in equally for good measure (3 songs each).
All in all, the band is on top of things on this particular night, and the audience sure seems to dig the experience (I do wonder what the guys that were shown the door got up to next though).
So, after having listened to and enjoyed this recording, I can easily suggest it. And it does put Charleston, West Virginia on the map for the rest of us Fugazi enthusiasts :-)

Crap... I just realized the first shows weren't recorded... bummer. I'd love to hear a first hand account of those shows if anyone feels like chimbing in on them..

I just downloaded this yesterday... I wonder if I was the first? Anyway.. I live in WV so I HAD to have this one, and I will be really excited when all the rest of the WV shows are up.. Especially the early ones... I'm curious to see how WVer's treated Fugazi back before everyone realized how important and good they actually are. They certainly didn't treat them great at this show in 1998. But I can't say that I didn't expect it. I'm sorry you had to deal with at least that one ass-hole. I can't even begin to imagine trying to play music for anyone who has spat on me. People in West Virginia can be really different... Course, I guess you could have that any where. Thanks for playing here so often in the past though. Most bands pass us right on by. If the Evens would play WV sometime that'd be excellent also.