In the humid Florida air of April 2, 1996, behind a Ft. Lauderdale rock venue, a 16-year-old version of myself, fueled by unfiltered cigarettes and teenage bravado, prepared to interview Ian MacKaye. Even then, standing in that strange tiki-esque structure, I knew I was in the presence of rock royalty. This was the frontman of Fugazi, the architect of Dischord Records, the mind behind Minor Threat – a true icon in the world of punk and post-hardcore. But in my youthful naiveté, my burning question for this vegan, straight-edge legend revolved around the comparative health risks of caramel versus meat. Cringe-worthy, I know. And to compound my awkwardness, I was mispronouncing his name.
The cassette tape of that interview, thankfully, is lost to time. The magazine issues featuring my less-than-stellar Q&A are also long gone. But another audio artifact from that very night is also missing, a phantom limb in my memory: a 90-minute cassette recording of what I’ve always declared to be the Best Ever Rock concert I’d ever witnessed.
The stage was set for something special. I was there with my co-editor, a girl who occupied a significant space in my 16-year-old heart. After the interview misstep, we navigated the packed club, The Edge, and found a surprisingly prime spot on the mezzanine. As the lights began to dim, and anticipation crackled in the air, I hit record on my trusty cassette player. High school’s end was looming, the future a vast unknown, and in that moment, the convergence of MacKaye’s recent magazine ad placement and the interview felt momentous. Then, the music began.
In the weeks and months following that show, I listened to the tape over and over. Remembering the utter chaos of a mosh pit, the way I nervously smoked cigarettes, even the damp men’s room, I invested in that crude field recording a lot of meaning.
Memory, however, is a fickle curator. As years accumulate, the sharpness of recollections fades. Science even confirms this: a study in the Journal of Neuroscience suggests that each time we access a memory, we subtly alter it, weakening the fidelity to the original event. So, those cherished moments, like that supposed best ever rock show, are destined to become distorted with each revisit. Unless, perhaps, you have a tangible record – a tape, a photograph, something to anchor the past.
The concert posters that once adorned my childhood bedroom walls? Gone, casualties of a summer repaint. Band t-shirts, softened with age and memories? Donated when they began to fray. Signed seven-inch records, precious relics of youthful fandom? Left behind in a Brooklyn sublet. Even the seemingly indestructible CD collections, thousands of albums amassed over a decade, vanished into thin air during a move. (If anyone has a signed Screeching Weasel/Born Against single, let me know).
But a cassette tape? How difficult could it be to hold onto a simple cassette tape?
Image alt text: Abstract blurred light streaks in orange and black, representing fragmented memories of a rock concert experience.
Life, inevitably, moved forward. The self-made music magazine faded into the past, replaced by a stint at Rolling Stone. Love evolved, leading to marriage. Cities changed – New York, Istanbul, Beirut, Los Angeles. Fatherhood arrived, and the hope of sharing the raw energy of a band like Fugazi with my daughter emerged.
Yet, through all the geographical and life shifts, the memory of that concert, that potential best ever rock performance, persisted. And with it, the phantom ache of the lost cassette.
In the weeks and months following that show, I listened to the tape over and over. Remembering the utter chaos of a mosh pit, the way I nervously smoked cigarettes, even the damp men’s room, I invested in that crude field recording a lot of meaning. (There are nights when things go right—and you cling to them as evidence that you can and should go on.)
The science is clear: memories degrade, details blur, cherished moments become distorted. But the physical world is equally treacherous. Objects are misplaced, lost, or simply vanish. And the search for something lost, something imbued with so much personal significance, can be maddening.
Image alt text: Black and white photograph of Nathan Deuel, Anna Williams, and Ian MacKaye, capturing a moment of punk rock history and youthful enthusiasm.
For years, back home between travels to far-flung corners of the world, I would launch desperate searches for the missing tape. Raiding boxes, interrogating my mother, the questions haunted me: Did it break? Did I lend it out? Did it even survive the move from Miami? Or, most painfully, was there a moment when I consciously decided it was no longer worth keeping?
Fast forward nearly two decades to 2014. With my first book on the horizon, nostalgia was in full bloom. A deep-dive Google search led me to Dischord Records’ comprehensive online archive of Fugazi live shows, many available for download. I scrolled, heart quickening, until I located the date: April 2, 1996.
This was it. The night I’d mentally crowned the best ever rock show of my life.
My memory painted a vivid scene: a sudden power outage during the concert. The lights plunging into darkness, the guitars falling silent, but drummer Brendan Canty relentlessly continuing, pounding out the beat. In my personal rock history, it was an epic, unforgettable moment. I’d recounted it countless times – to my wife, friends, colleagues at Rolling Stone – the legendary power outage that stretched for minutes (or was it seconds?).
Driven by this vivid memory, I clicked download.
Image alt text: Saturated orange and red light streaks against a dark backdrop, evoking the intense energy and raw emotion of a live rock music performance.
My wife entered the room as the music filled the space. She recognized the intensity. “Is it that show?” she asked, “The one you always talk about?”
The room felt charged, like a séance conjuring the past. The opening chords of “Sieve-Fisted Find,” a Fugazi track I still revered, filled the air, raw and live, undeniably not a studio recording.
The lights dimmed and the guitars went silent, but drummer Brendan Canty kept going, pounding out the beat. It was, to me, one of the most remarkable moments in rock history—at least my rock history.
“Is it that show?” Kelly says. “The one you always talk about?”
I impulsively tagged a friend on Facebook, someone I vaguely recalled giving a copy of the tape to. “Dude, listening to that ’96 show, the power outage one!” His reply was swift: he remembered the packed venue, Fugazi’s hit-filled set, Ian MacKaye’s ejection of some skinheads. “But the power outage?” he wrote, “I don’t know.”
I listened intently, the recording quality surprisingly good. “Promises” sounded even better than I remembered. But as the minutes ticked by, a knot of unease tightened in my stomach. Thirty minutes in, no inspiring silence, no heroic drum solo in the dark. Yet, the memory felt so real, so visceral. Had I invented it?
The things we cherish, physical or mental, inevitably slip away, replaced by new attachments, new priorities. Sometimes, a flicker from the past, a chance rediscovery, reminds us that perhaps some things are best left to fade.
Music, though, possesses a unique resilience. An old song can be rediscovered, loved anew, especially through the ears of children. But musical tastes evolve. Truthfully, Fugazi wasn’t in my regular rotation anymore, not with the same fervor as my 16-year-old self.
Back in my house, the digital recording played on. No power outage. No silence. But undeniably, they sounded incredible.
Suddenly, the show was ending. “Peace,” Ian MacKaye’s voice echoed through the speakers. It was over. No drum solo. No power outage. Doubt crept in: had the silence ever truly happened?
Confronted with this audio truth, a realization dawned. Fugazi played over a thousand shows between 1987 and 2002, all for five dollars. The one I witnessed, real or embellished by memory, remains my best ever rock show.
Why does this discrepancy matter so much? Is the essence of the experience, the feeling that it happened, not enough? The story, after all, had taken on a life of its own through countless retellings. (And a sliver of hope remained: a soundboard recording might cut out with the power, right?).
The lines blurred between memory and reality. Perhaps, the fragile constructs we hold in our minds are more valuable than concrete proof, more potent than objective truth, more real than anything unearthed online.
I pressed play again. Regardless of accuracy, the experience of revisiting that night, of wrestling with memory and reality, was undeniably rich – incandescent, marvelous, deliciously pointless, perhaps untrue, but profoundly meaningful. Fugazi live was, and in my memory remains, incredible.
Lead photo by linesonpaper/Flickr.
