Stuff You Gotta Watch: Instrument
Filmed on grainy stock and pieced together from a decade of footage, Jem Cohen’s portrait of Fugazi is not your typical rock doc. The two-hour trip drifts through the daily life of a band—shows, rehearsals, interviews, trips to the gas station—without imposing a narrative. Instead, Instrument is a reflection of the D.C. punk band’s dissident ethos: raw, unadorned, and improvised.
There’s no idol worship—even the kids in the parking lot are ambivalent about the band they’ve come to see: “What do they mean to me? Oh, they don’t mean anything.” There’s confrontation, too, as frontman Ian MacKaye ejects the most rabid fans (including one “ice cream eating motherfucker“) for spitting and fighting in the front row. And contrary to Fugazi’s po-faced reputation, there’s humour between the cracks—backstage goofs and self-deprecation, as they laugh off a rumour that they all live together in an unheated house, subsisting on bowls of rice.

But the real glory of Instrument is the live performances, captured at frighteningly close range as MacKaye and guitarist Guy Picciotto careen across stage, their ankles turned to jelly and their faces contorted. If you were ever in doubt that Fugazi really, really mean it, just watch Picciotto thread himself through a basketball hoop to finish a song upside-down, swaying dangerously over the drum kit. Nerve-shredding and life-affirming all at once.

Review by Chal Ravens. Check out the full archive of the Stuff You Gotta Watch column.