During the prime of grunge, all roads led back to Nirvana. Although many luminaries from the Seattle scene may have been famous at the start of the 1990s, every aspiring musician had Kurt Cobain to thank for getting them off the ground, sending shockwaves through the rock community with the release of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. Even though Cobain was known to fly off the handle at nearly every Nirvana gig, he knew that one performance would never happen again.
When looking back on Nirvana’s live experience, there was no guarantee that the audience would get the same show twice. From the constantly switching setlists to the ups and downs of Cobain’s ever-changing mood, every single one of the band’s shows was its own unique event, usually culminating in the frontman and bassist Krist Novoselic destroying their gear at the end of the show.
Despite the massive response to the album Nevermind, though, the group never had a proper tour to commemorate their newfound success. As much as stores may have been selling the record, the band’s royalties weren’t enough to finance a vast tour, only playing small clubs before coming off the road because of the size of the crowds.
Once the band made their definitive statement with In Utero, they were finally ready to work the market as rock stars, with Germs guitarist Pat Smear being brought in so Cobain could focus more on singing. For all of the caustic rock songs that filled out their setlist most nights, the singer was still interested in taking his music to different places on the road.
Between the loud alt-rock songs, the band would occasionally have an acoustic portion of their show, featuring Cobain and Novoselic sitting down and pumping out unplugged versions of covers and original material. Since the band were already interested in stripping down their distorted pieces, making an appearance on MTV Unplugged made too much sense.
As opposed to playing a standard set of stripped-down versions of their songs, Cobain took the opportunity to create a new live experience that Nirvana fans had never seen before. Filling out the setlist with as many covers as originals, Cobain created a stellar collection of songs that would rank among the band’s most outstanding live performances, featuring subdued versions of songs like ‘Dumb’ as well as a great cover of David Bowie’s ‘The Man Who Sold the World’.
Once the night was wrapping up, though, Cobain saved the hardest vocal showcase for last, shredding his throat when tearing through Leadbelly’s ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night’. Although the band had time to play an encore, Cobain thought that he could never match the original performance he laid down.
When talking about that night, MTV producer Alex Coletti recalled, “I really tried to get him to do an encore. I had the other band members ready to do it. But Kurt just wasn’t into it. The pleading went on for five minutes. Finally, Kurt said, ‘I can’t top that last song’. And when he said that, I backed off because I knew he was right.”
Bellowing from the depths of his soul, ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night’ is one of the most intense experiences any Nirvana fan will see, with Cobain looking almost afraid of the power of his voice by the time he screams out the last few lines. Since MTV Unplugged was one of the last high-profile gigs that Nirvana would play before Cobain’s tragic passing, it’s hard to deny how much pain is in his voice throughout every second of this song.
