Why Nirvana Unplugged Rules and Your Parents are Shooting Heroin in Your Bedroom.

Nirvana Unplugged (full version)

Back when MTV used to have music, The Unplugged series was a chance for artists to show off their hits in not only a new medium (acoustic) but it was also a chance to see your favorite artists in a small, intimate, and informal environment.

  By the time Nirvana came around. It had become as essential for artists to go on Unplugged as it is now for Presidential candidates to go on SNL during election season. Paul McCartney, Stevie Ray Vaughn, & Mariah Carey are just some of the names that had already played on Unplugged. Eric Clapton even won six Grammy's for his Unplugged CD. If you were already a big star, doing Unplugged would make you even bigger. 

  And Nirvana was already big. I mean Nirvana fans would go so crazy they would do shit like this whenever they heard their music

   But Nirvana's Unplugged was a departure from all that. It proved a hard rock band could be just as powerful when the amps weren't turned all the way up to 10. It proved that you don't need to play your hit songs or even your own music, and it showed just how powerful a stage presence Kurt Cobain really was. It was their swan song performance. It was the best performance of the Unplugged series, and it was their best of their televised performances. And if you don't agree then you are simply:

  And you should also be laughed at like this:

And like this:

THE STAGE

 It's almost prophetic watching this unplugged not just because this was filmed only a few short months before Kurt Cobain's death, but because it looks like you're watching a funeral. Lillies and black candles, subdued lighting, make it seem as if you're watching a suicide note versus a musical performance. 

 Then there's Kurt Cobain's demeanor. With the exception of a few moments onstage, he is sullen, softspoken, and almost aloof. He was going thru heavy drug withdrawls during the performance, but I heard that someone actually offered him drugs before the show. And it was caught on video, look below:

THE SET LIST

1. "About a Girl"
2. "Come as You Are"
3. "Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam" (The Vaselines)
4. "The Man Who Sold the World" (David Bowie)
5. "Pennyroyal Tea" 
6. "Dumb" 
7. "Polly" 
8. "On a Plain"
9. "Something in the Way"
10. "Plateau" (The Meat Puppets)
11. "Oh, Me" (The Meat Puppets)
12. "Lake of Fire" (The Meat Puppets)
13. "All Apologies"  
14. "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" 

  Unlike all the artists before Nirvana who used Unplugged as a chance to showcase all of their hits acoustically, Nirvana said "Fuck That" and went with a set list that MTV was not happy about and almost resulted in their show being cancelled.

  Out of the 14 songs, 6 were cover songs and only one, "Come As You Are," was a hit song. Three of the six cover songs, were performed with The Meat Puppets, a band MTV was not happy with either, as they were trying to get Nirvana to agree to perform with bigger names a la an Eddie Vedder or someone like that.

THE LITTLE MOMENTS

All the stuff that MTV usually will edit out are the things that make this the best unplugged ever. I don't think they've ever officially released this on dvd but the bootleg copy I've had for years has some great little moments. It's these funny, quirky, unpolished moments that help make this great.

1. Dave Grohl is heard bumming smokes from Pat Smear (18:25) as they go to the backstage area for Kurt Cobain's solo version of Pennyroyal Tea

2. Kurt didn’t want to play “Dumb” and “Polly” back to back. “Because they’re exactly the same song,” Cobain explains. (26:43) “Who cares, it will be edited different. This is a television show!” he reasons. (22:30)

3. . Kurt and Krist discuss “Davey and Goliath.” “Remember the little black bird on ‘Davey and Goliath?’” Novaselic asks Cobain midway through the performance. Cobain doesn’t, but he does have other memories of the show. “Remember that really evil episode where he was really mad at this kid and he had all these visions of how he was going to, ‘First I’m going to take him up to a hill and tie him to a tree and tar and feather him!’” Cobain recalls, adopting his best Davey voice. “It was evil! That wasn’t Christian at all.” (38:18)

4. There was almost a performance of “Sweet Home Alabama.” Kurt slurs and grunts his way through the first two lines of the Lynyrd Skynyrd classic during downtime before the Meat Puppets are ready. (41:15)

5. Kurt came in early on the first chorus of “Lake of Fire.” Oops. Hear him catch and cover up his mistake at 50:12.

6. On his way off stage, Kurt stops to sign autographs for fans before (the story goes) arguing backstage with  MTV producers because he refused to do an encore. And he was right. There was no way you could've topped that.   (1:05:40)

7. Kurt is basically sitting in an office chair. You’ve gotta sit in something, I guess, it just seems odd that for such a ghostly performance, Cobain is sitting in a chair that looks like it was picked up by an intern at the Office Max around the corner a few hours before the show started.

8. The set list didn’t seem to be ironed out ahead of time. Fans shout titles from the audience and the band considers them, and at one point Grohl suggests they do “Sliver,” but Cobain decides against it because he has to scream in it. “What else do you want to do?” Grohl asks him. (57:30) The band also at one point toys with doing “School.”

 9. Pat Smear DIDN'T WEAR SHOES! See below

5. Kurt reads zines in his downtime. While a guitar is being tuned off stage, Kurt can be seen on stage reading. (41:11)

It feels like you're watching the biggest rock band in the world rehearsing and having a good time, and showing that they weren't just another hard rock band. They showed themselves as something larger than music. If that performance never happened, I honestly think that Nirvana would've been relegated to just another part of that 90's fad that was grunge music.

  To this day it still remains an intense, gloomy performance. I don't know if I'm alone in thinking this but I honestly have trouble watching the video or listening to the cd in its entirety just because it is that intense. 

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