On the afternoon of October 6 1989 I attended a Fugazi concert in Cambridge Mass, probably one of the best live shows I've ever seen.

Last year I casually searched YouTube for some shows I had attended in my youth and this one popped up, recorded by a high school classmate who happened to be there, filming from the side from a balcony or rope rack used by stagehands.

I then went to the Fugazi Live Series archive to see if there was better quality audio (the band recorded most of their shows from the 1980s through the early 2000s, and posted almost all of them in the archive). That October 1989 concert was in the database (https://dischord.com/fugazi_live_series/cambridge-ma-usa-100...), and there were some comments by others who attended, but there was no supporting media other than a single photograph.

So I emailed the address on the website:

Hi, regarding this show someone created a video recording from which the audio can probably be extracted. It's on YouTube here:

https://youtu.be/0XS3QD2cddo?si=1TM9PglNv-Rlr98w

I was at the show but not near the stage. It was a memorable show for me and many others according to the description on the official Fugazi archive.

The uploader of the video (my high school classmate, who I believe was a member of the FUs at some point) says:

"In 1989, I went to the First Congregational Church, In Harvard Sq. Cambridge Massachusetts, in hopes of getting into this Fugazi show. Unfortunately, the promoter pre-sold the tickets to people he knew. Thus there was a large crowd of people trying to get in without tickets. Fortunately for me, I had been friends with him before, and he let my girlfriend and I in. Once inside, I asked Guy if I could videotape the show, he told me to go ahead... as long as I sent a copy of the video to Dischord Records... I never did... I just wasn't responsible enough in those days to bother... anyway, here it is, the full show, in all it's faded and low resolution glory... so go ahead, enjoy, and share."

To my surprise, Ian MacKaye responded! While he could extract the audio from YouTube, he wanted to know if I could get in touch with my high school classmate who might still have the original tapes which would have better quality. I did, and my classmate actually got the tapes (from his old girlfriend, who had them in a box in her basement) and shipped them off to Ian. At some point they will be properly digitized and put on the Fugazi archive.

I had a long interview with Ian about archiving which I hope to post on my blog later this summer. To make a long story short, he's amassed a huge collection of materials from Fugazi and his previous bands (most notably Minor Threat) which includes concert audio, studio audio, video, photos, concert flyers, and every piece of fan mail they received at Dischord House from the 1980s to the present day.

He's very systematic about organizing the archives, thanks to interactions with trained archivists including several working for the federal government (he's based in Washington DC).