In the course of March 1991, a couple of weeks after a short stretch of (five) regional (and memorable) shows in Washington D.C. particularly, Fugazi toured the East Coast of the United States for another 16 concerts, including these two consecutive sold-out shows at the Marquee in New York City.

There was a piece “Melodies Amid Rant, Thoughts Amid Rage” by Jon Pareles in the New York Times on March 7, 1991 about the first night at the Marquee:

“While Fugazi has moved beyond hardcore, hardcore fans still claim Fugazi. At the Marquee on Monday, within a largely collegiate audience, slam-dancers churned up the crowd and climbed on stage to dive back onto the dance floor. Mr. MacKaye, dourly addressing the audience as Gentlemen and individuals as Sir, admonished the dancers to ‘be considerate’ and ‘be a little bit more up-to-date.’ He was right: against Fugazi's taut, ascetic songs, the old hardcore flailing seems wanton and mismatched.”
The recording of this first night includes notable versions of Reclamation (Guy lashes out at someone at the beginning of the song, and Ian follows up on some antics during an extended intro), Waiting Room (which gets a good response), Shut The Door (Ian strikes some additional chords by way of alternate intro) or Promises (played in response to someone shouting for Ian to ”say something incisive”).

Fugazi played 20 songs on the first night, including 9 out of 11 Repeater tracks, no less than 7 songs off of the Steady Diet of Nothing album which would not see its release until a couple of months later (July 1991), and 2 songs off of the Margin Walker and 7 Songs EPs each.

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As to the second night at the Marquee, it is worth mentioning that film maker and friend of the band Jem Cohen shot some incredible and really intense black and white footage on this occasion. The footage can be seen in his Instrument documentary, both during the Closed Captioned demo excerpt and consecutive “Joe’s playing live with Fugazi monologue” / Long Division instrumental (mins 27:30-29:06) as well as during Little Debbie (mins 42:20-43:56). The place appears lit, the band is going off while Guy demonstrates the art of non-resistance to confuse and overcome attention-seekers roaming the stage.

Suggestion into Give Me The Cure is my highlight here, as well as Glueman which is played in spite of Guy “kinda aching today” and gets sent out (appropriately) to the Cohen brothers in attendance, as well as to Guy’s brother Mike.

Stage banter inter alia touches on the band having just checked out Blood in the Face documentary which came out on February 21, 1991 and “offers an eye-opening look at neo-Nazism and its proponents in the United States” according to IMDb, and there is some mention of Sonic Youth as well, “you know, Sonic Youth just played down in Washington, and they said, ‘the New York-D.C. war was over and they had won cause they were playing the capital center’, they were opening for Neil Young you know, but hey, we’re playing the Marquee.”

The set list of the second night is shorter with 17 songs, but a bit more varied. Repeater offers 7 songs, 4 tracks are taken off of (the upcoming) Steady Diet of Nothing, 4 off of the 7 Songs debut EP, and just 1 song off of the Margin Walker EP and 3 Songs 7 inch.

The sound quality of both recordings is just good in my opinion. The vocals come off a bit muffled, yet slightly less so on the recording of the second night.

i dont have a lot of money. im really impressed with how many shows were played. i am dowloading this one because it was the day i was born. i might download another one for my girlfriends birthdays so we can decide once and for all whos better.
Thanks