But obviously gets magnified in the context of what happened later." Everyone knew we just saw another side of a very important band. In celebration of the 30th anniversary, here are some of the best performances, from Pearl Jam, to Nirvana and more. Speaking in the Bare Witness making-of documentary, he says: "Everyone knew this was special. MTV Unplugged premiered on November 26, 1989. Perhaps the last word should go to Alex Coletti, the producer of MTV Unplugged at the time. (And anyone prepared to appear onstage with Dave Grohl wearing a turtleneck jumper and a ponytail had to have a sense of humour.)įor once, the extras are worth a look - see the alternate versions of Come as You Are, Polly and Pennyroyal Tea, as wells as covers of Plateau by the Meat Puppets and Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World from rehearsals. Cobain slowly swivels on his chair bringing a wry grin to bear and says, "I don't think MTV will let us play that," a reference to the band's appearance at 1992 MTV Awards, when they were banned from playing song. Before the highlight of the evening, a cover of Where Did You Sleep Last Night by Leadbelly, someone shouts out a request for Rape Me. And when Cobain sighs before the opening song, About a Girl, while staring in to the middle distance with something like terror in his eyes, it's hard not to think of the words he later wrote in a far from metaphorical suicide note: "The fact is, I can't fool you, any one of you".īut there was a lighter side to Cobain, too.
The stage set certainly seems pregnant with meaning: dressed with black candles and white lilies, it couldn't look more like a funeral. It also supports both sides of the you-could-tell-something-was-wrong / it-was-just-a-good-gig argument. Many people will be familiar with this performance from the album, but even so this 66-minute unedited footage (including Something in the Way and Oh Me, which were cut from the original broadcast) makes fascinating viewing. But until now it has never been available as a video or DVD (bootlegs notwithstanding). When it was released seven months after Cobain took his own life, Nirvana: Unplugged in New York sold over 5m copies in America alone, topped the album charts in seven countries, and went on to win a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album. Others reckon it to be an interesting and eclectic example of the Unplugged format, but that any deeper meaning is the product of myth-making and hindsight. Some people consider it to be Kurt Cobain, the tortured genius, stripping both his songs, and himself, to the bone in a brilliant, painfully raw performance that amounts to a kind of suicide note. The show, directed by Beth McCarthy, first aired on MTV on December 14, 1993. It features an acoustic concert the band played at Sony Music Studios in New York City on November 18, 1993. Opinion on Nirvana's MTV Unplugged performance at Sony Music Studios in New York on November 18, 1993, is divided into two camps. MTV Unplugged in New York is a live album by the American grunge band, Nirvana.
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