This show and the one on the following night are the only shows Fugazi ever played on Japan’s northernmost main island Hokkaido, and both of them took place in the city of Sapporo. These performances wrap up a short run of 9 gigs in Japan as part of the 1996 US / Asia / Australia tour.

As was the case at the gigs on the previous nights, both of these shows played out in front of very small audiences of some 150 people, so there is little here to mention in terms of stage banter or interaction with the crowd. Most of the time you hardly even notice the live audience is there.

This particular show was hosted by Klub Counter Action and this recording actually had been made available by the band as volume 14 of a (first) set of 20 live shows on CD in 2004, well before the Fugazi Live Series in digital form launched in 2011.

The recording offers 18 live songs and almost half of these are taken off of the Red Medicine album (7). The End Hits album (at the time not yet released) further provides some tracks (3), as do Repeater (2) and Steady Diet of Nothing (2). The rest of the repertoire, i.e. In on the Kill Taker, Margin Walker EP, 7 Songs EP and 3 Songs seven-inch complete the set with just one song each.

Birthday Pony and No Surprise are both staples of this Japanese leg of the 1996 tour. More interestingly, the set features a rare 1996 performance of Song #1, an early version of Floating Boy (still in instrumental form) as well as a rare 1996 live performance of Walken’s Syndrome (this one is the only one played in Japan that year).

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The first half of the show is a bit of a hit-and-miss for me personally. It is kind of all over the place and fails to grab my attention right off the bat. Aside from addressing some air conditioning issues, the band just plows on.

Song #1 does elicit some cheers and pretty much signals a turning point in my opinion, ushering the listener into a great second half of the set. Joe adds a “pull yourself up, pull me up” lyric to By You, Bed For The Scraping is far from perfect but engaging nonetheless and by the time Do You Like Me hits full stride the band catches its wave and is riding it out. It had me singing out loud.

Long Division ensues which is a bit strange considering the sudden change in pace but this one really showcases Brendan’s subtle magic behind the kit as he plays off the rim, adds fills here and there, and makes ample use of the infamous bell. Great versions of a number of staples as well as an instrumental version of Floating Boy mentioned above further complete the set.

Before going into the final encore, Ian offers some praise for his hosts, “we first came to Japan 5 years ago in 1991, and we said, ‘Why don’t we go play Sapporo?’ And they said, ’No, don’t go to Sapporo, there is nothing going on there.’ And then we came back in 1993, and we said, ‘Why can’t we go to Sapporo?’ And they said, ‘There is nothing going on there.’ And this year we came back, we said, ‘Why can’t we go to Sapporo?’ And they said, ‘Ok’ and we found out there was something going on here, thank you very much for that.”

The mix of the recording settles early on and the sound quality of the vocals and instruments is easily very good, not counting some occasional volume changes.

Footage of this first night in Sapporo is available through YouTube (https://youtu.be/ce0rXDv2_xg)