Every week, we’ll be posting a new illustration by David Lester. The Mecca Normal guitarist is visually documenting people, places and events from his band’s 43-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.
Funny thing circa the Dovetail era: The night we opened for Fugazi at Roseland in NYC, the soundchecks all seemed to go long. Because we were playing first, out soundcheck was last. As we were leaving the stage, the venue doors opened and the audience filled the room. Once back in the green room, we realized we hadn’t stockpiled any onstage beer for our set, and there was no way to fight our way through the crowd to get to the bar. Without missing a beat, Fugazi’s Ian MacKaye (well known to be a non-drinker) asked what kind of beer and how many, before dashing out a doorway into the alley. He returned some time later with a bunch of beer for us.
“Clatter” from Dovetail (K, 1992) (download):
