Bootleg Country: Nirvana - 10/31/91
Published June 23, 2006
I dig the influential nature of the scene. Rock certainly needed a good swift kick from hair metal and arena rock. When listening to the MTV Unplugged album, you can really get a feel for how great a songwriter Cobain, et al. was. But these days, my musical tastes swing the long shot away from the amped-up new punk that is the bulk of their releases.
Nirvana
10/31/91
Seattle, WA
A Halloween show just after Nirvana became the saviors of rock music. It is loud, full of angst and anger, and some pretty stinkin' good melodies underneath it all.
From my 30-year-old head, which prefers Donna the Buffalo to Soundgarden, Norah Jones to L7, this guitar heavy neo-punk music takes awhile to warm up to. After the first listen I was bored, so I turned it up a few notches. This is rock 'n freaking roll, after all, and it needs to be cranked.
That helped, the rhythmic pounding blasting from my little Saturn's speakers got me to head banging, all the way down to my pancreas.
But it still wasn't enough; I kept wishing I had a copy of Springsteen's Seeger Sessions or maybe a Bruce Hornsby bootleg, circa 1997.
By the third listen my nerves had calmed down. My mind accepted the distortion, the noise, the grunge of it all, and I began to digest the music.
For the love of grunge, this is some rockin' shite.
For a band with only two albums under their belt, they mix it up pretty well. They cover a good portion of Bleach and Nevermind, throw in a couple of new songs, and even manage to cover the Vaseline's "Jesus Don't Want Me For a Sunbeam."
The band seems to be in good spirits. Besides rockin' they make some cracks about the audience not being dressed up for Halloween, white boy funk, and John Jacobs and the Power team. But mostly they just rock out.
Listening to these guys throw down the heavy stuff for a fourth time didn't make me join the cult of Nirvana once more, but it reminded me why I was once part of the faithful.
Mat Brewster is an American stumbling as an ex-pat through the streets of Shanghai. He is helped by his lovely wife and an enormous piles of bootleg DVDs. He is chronicling his adventures in the Shanghai Diaries and musing on pop culture at The Midnight Cafe.
- Bootleg Country: Nirvana - 10/31/91
- Published: June 23, 2006
- Type: Review
- Section: Music
- Filed Under: Music: Live Concerts, Music: Punk Rock, Music: Rock
- Part of a feature: Bootleg Country
- Writer: Mat Brewster
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It's interesting to hear how people of "our" generation (young Gen X-ers, I suppose, I'm 32) came across Nirvana. It sounds as though your musical tastes and perhaps relative youth put you in a different place with regard to Nirvana as compared to me.
I grew up listening to straight classic rock: Led Zep, Hendrix, Cream, Doors, Jefferson Airplane. The hair metal scene turned me off completely, particularly because assholes at my high school seemed to embody everything that was wrong about a band like Guns N Roses... or, more typical of the times, Winger or Firehouse or Cinderella.
In any event, my "Beatles moment" came on a day I came home from high school, flipped on MTV, and saw the video for Smells Like Teen Spirit playing on the "buzz bin" (if I'm not mistaken). I was listening to something completely different, and I liked it a lot.
I caught the In Utero tour in late '93 in Buffalo New York and it was one of the best live shows I've ever seen.
Very nice review, especially because it's a rather different perspective and not a fanboyish review :)
Thanks folks. Even though I've gotten out of my Nirvana phase, I'd still take them over the fighters of foo.
EB, I was a straight top 40 kid. Which having grown up in the late 80s early 90s (I'm 30) meant lots of hair metal, pseudo rappers like Young MC, MC Hammer, and dance pop like Paula Abdul.
When Nirvana hit I fell in love with the grunge/alternative scene. I loved Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, the Cure, Dinosaur Jr all that stuff.
Now I much prefer acoustic guitars and horns to amped up metal. Nirvana is more nostalgia for me than anything else.
Thanks aJ. I think I was a fanboy once, but again my tastes have gone in other directions in the ten odd years since Nevermind.
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nice review sir brewster. i came to Nirvana sort of late in the game. didn't really love Nevermind all that much, but got hooked when i read an article about them and some of the subject matter on In Utero (especially the creepy "Scentless Apprentice").
then i went back and picked up Nevermind.
alla that said, for some reason i still have more fun listening to The Foo Fighters.