Leading up to their three-night stint in Tokyo and two more nights in Sapporo, Fugazi started off their 1996 Japanese run with another four shows in as many Japanese cities. All of these performances took place in front of very select audiences of 300 people tops, which is remarkable since the year is 1996 and the band was used to cater to much bigger audiences by now, coming off of the release of two critically acclaimed albums in 1993 and 1995 and relentless touring in the course of those same years.

Even though these first four shows of the 1996 Japanese run do not offer all that much in terms of banter or audience participation, and some of the recordings are incomplete, these do merit attention in my book because the band always enjoyed spending time and playing in Japan, the sound quality of the recorded documents is really good overall and some of these venues and places simply speak a great deal to the imagination.

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Out of the first four 1996 Japanese performances, this one-off show at Viure Hall in Fukuoka is probably my least favorite. I can’t really put my finger on it, but there are a number of drawbacks that play into this feeling: Ian straining his voice, Guy appearing under the weather, the guitar play being slightly off or out of tune,..

However, with just the beginning of Merchandise missing, this is a complete recording, offering 23 live tracks.

Songs off of the upcoming End Hits album (April 1998) were debuted live since August 1996 and you get four of those here. This includes a rare Guilford Fall in instrumental form (6 are currently listed to have been recorded) as well as the Floating Boy debut (also in instrumental form). Five Corporations is still titled Brand X at this point.

Birthday Pony is on heavy rotation and gets played at 7 out of 9 shows during the Japanese leg of the 1996 tour, including here. Sieve-Fisted Find and Cassavetes make an appearance as well, and were played just once in Japan in 1996.

The set list includes a nice version of Long Division, and a version of Promises with some reverb and dub effects as well as distortion on the vocals. Sweet and Low once again closes out the show and has a nice groove to it, with Brendan playing off the rim and some “snare-scraping” before Ian concludes the evening with “peace my friends.”