by Nick Soulsby
The bands waited for the audience to disperse.
GABRIEL GUERRISI: There were food stains on the wall as if they had made some jokes. Kurt looked like a zombie, like somebody lost floating to some other place, no relevant attitude, like a person in suspension … Courtney Love was in a bridal dress … After the show, some of Los Brujos went to greet them. Dave and Krist came in a good mood, made some photos for the press, and left.
GILLY ANN HANNER: After the show, my band mates got slaughtered, drank a lot—got ill. We were stressed out … the next day we had to go back home and were faced with this large hotel bill from having eaten snacks out [of] the minibar. I think anyone who isn’t used to big hotels has done that: “Look at all this free stuff!” We had no money, we were in trouble, the minder, this woman who had been so nice to us the day before, wasn’t nice to us at all and told us, “You shouldn’t have done that, it was really ugly when you yelled at the crowd, women don’t do that.” She really got on my case … So, we went back to our broken-down van, our broken guitars, all our crap in New Mexico … Then our band imploded once we tried to go back on tour. We’d lost heart … our guitars were broken, we couldn’t get the money we were supposed to get because we didn’t have a bank account in the name Calamity Jane and that’s who the check was made out to—it took us three months to get the money. We were broke, bummed out … Argentina was our last show.
Until Buenos Aires, the two October shows had been the only times in 1992 Nirvana declined to play “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” From its debut, from 150 known sets, the song was excluded only 11 times. Four of those times (Pukkelpop; October 3–4, 1992; the Mia Zapata benefit) were when Nirvana was a substitute or secret guest. Without the pressure to please, they would drop it. Sometimes it was done in anger, as in Buenos Aires, or in Chicago on the In Utero tour when the gig went so badly the audience booed and Cobain yelled at them for throwing wet T-shirts onto his pedals. MTV’s ever-despised management was also a factor; having refused to play it at the MTV Video Music Awards, Nirvana pointedly sliced it from MTV Live and Loud. In November 1993, when negotiating MTV Unplugged, the band skipped the song at two performances before hauling the support bands onstage to demolish the tune as a jam. In a non-coincidence, the final two times the song was evicted from the set list were Nirvana’s last-ever shows. Cobain was a musician; he voiced his dissatisfaction through music by killing his most famous song—a vengeance running to his last days.
January 1993; Nirvana headed to Brazil for their first shows since the Buenos Aires debacle. This was the Hollywood Rock Festival, an event named after a cigarette brand, Hollywood, that was itself named after one of the grand symbols of American mainstream culture. It was apt, given the local audience were aware of Nirvana only as part of the larger wave of US culture sold into the market.
CASTOR DAUDT, Defalla: MTV Brazil has just started to air, and everybody was waiting for the “next big thing.” Turned out that it was us, and from the States, it was Nirvana … When MTV Brazil opened, in 1990, that was the starting point for every good Brazilian rock band of that time.
EDU K, Defalla: By then we were not living under the dark clouds of the dictatorship that shredded the country apart in the ’60s; we were free to enjoy our Coca-Colas, MTV, and rock concerts.
BRUNO CASTRO GOUVEIA, Biquini Cavadão: Until 1990, all the music production was brought by the five major record companies: EMI, RCA, WEA, CBS, and PolyGram. Most of the records were released here, but sometimes it took nearly a year to have new albums, especially from minor labels and [the] punk movement.
Nirvanamania had already hit Brazil.
IVAN BUSIC, Dr. Sin: Nirvana were already taking control and becoming the number one band on the planet.
EDU K: They were, for sure, a huge crossover band here; pop heads as well as rockers and metal heads loved them. It’s like, we, the cool people, were aware of them a long time before the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video set the world on fire, but after they took MTV by assault, there was no resisting their power and panache!
ANDRÉ STELLA: The first time I heard Nirvana was in 1991, on MTV … I tell you, it was a punch to the face. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing … The next day, in college, my friends were all asking me, “Did you hear that band Nirvana on MTV last night, did you hear that song? The song kicks ass and the singer looks like you!”
The audiences didn’t view Nirvana as unique. They were only one among many world-class American cultural invaders.
CASTOR DAUDT: There was a kind of “Nirvanamania,” but there were other bands considered just as important like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Extreme … Like I said, MTV Brazil was our connection with the “music world” and we saw all these great bands on a daily basis and listened to them on the radio.
The Brazilian bands chosen to play the festival were all significant regional stars.
EDU K: We were traveling by bus to a city for a gig, an’ we opened up the newspaper an’ learned that we were voted by public choice to play the festival!
CASTOR DAUDT: It was the perfect festival for us to be in, because we were the Brazilian band that had most in common with these bands and we had just released a very well-received album … Apparently the people who were producing that festival thought the same, Defalla was the perfect band to open the festival and represent the new Brazilian sound.
IVAN BUSIC: Dr. Sin was new, but we were already very popular among the rock scene in Brazil because of many other bands we played with before, such as, Platina, Taffo, A Chave do Sol, Anjos da Noite … We are still a reference when talking about technical musicians and so in the beginning it sounded kind of weird to put our band on the same day as Nirvana, a very straight rock band.
BRUNO CASTRO GOUVEIA: The show was in the Morumbi Stadium (aka Estádio Cícero Pompeu de Toledo), a soccer stadium adapted for the concerts. It was complete[ly] filled with nearly 60,000 people. I think that there was a ten-meter gap between band and audience … Biquini Cavadão opened for Alice in Chains and Red Hot Chili Peppers. After my show and Alice’s, I was hidden at the back of the stage to see RHCP performing … Suddenly, Layne Staley from Alice in Chains arrived … When I looked back again, Kurt and Courtney were also there, just behind me! I spoke only a few words with Layne, the usual thing: “How was the gig?” And I thought, Look at this calm guy with his big wife, a bit shy and quiet: he’s Kurt Cobain! Then security arrived. A big guy asking us in English to move from there. Kurt didn’t like this and started arguing with him, so did Courtney. I was predicting a fight between them and decided to leave the place … I believe we were not allowed to stay because the RHCP show had special effects—they used helmets with flames throwing from the top of their heads, for instance. I believe the security was not only a question of keeping the place clean. I left them discussing and arguing with Kurt and Courtney … Kurt was serious, not smiling as I recall, but didn’t seem angry or upset, or even uncomfortable. Just a quiet guy.
The next evening, however, was close to a reprise of Buenos Aires—this time with no gallant justifications.
IVAN BUSIC: I guess that for that concert Kurt was a little bit crazier and he couldn’t sing or play guitar very well … The studio album with “Smells like Teen Spirit” had such a great sound that we were really shocked; Dave played the drums very well and the bass sounded OK, but Kurt was on another planet … I remember Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers going onstage with them to play trumpet—oh my God … That’s OK. It’s only rock ’n’ roll.
At its nadir, Novoselic threw his bass at Cobain and stormed off, only to be hustled back on once reminded of legal obligations—he didn’t bother re-tuning. Cobain, meanwhile, mashed cantaloupe melon over his guitar.
EDU K: Kurt couldn’t get those harmonic notes he did in “Teen Spirit” right anytime they played it. I thought it was hilarious!
Nirvana capitulated, swapped instruments, and ran the clock down jamming old pop songs. In an
echo of Buenos Aires Cobain mauled “We Will Rock You,” singing to the audience, “We will fuck you” instead.
EDU K: I’d never expected Nirvana to do to a “tight” show an’ they lived up to their legend. The Chili Peppers, on the other hand, did their “tight” an’ bored usual end-of-the-tour show. They lacked energy and danger an’ I was disgusted by that an’ threw all my Pepper records an’ T-shirts in the bin when I came back home … Lemme tell you, when Nirvana swapped instruments an’ played Duran Duran’s “Rio” I literally creamed my pants, ha-ha! It was incredible. It’s not your usual daily thing that you’d see a band falling apart and being so careless an’ wild onstage … It seems to me that some people in the press or in the crowd were a li’l pissed off in a sense because, fuck, they’ve waited that long for this? It was really mixed, in fact. I myself think the ones that didn’t get it missed the point of it all and I absolutely loved both shows an’ thought they were real genius!
Edu K’s positivity is matched by a very clear-sighted assessment of what was witnessed.
EDU K: It was pretty clear that they were collapsing but, crowds are like Romans at the Coliseum, are we not? Who doesn’t like to see public figures falling apart in public? I mean, Nirvana was … this gigantic wounded animal, raw an’ alive an’ bleeding in front of everybody: if that’s not what legends are made of, I don’t know what is! To me, at that moment in time, Nirvana was scratching their names with broken an’ bloody fingernails in the Rock ’N’ Roll Badass Blackboard. It was the stuff of nightmares an’ forever unforgettable … They had a lotta guts to do what they did an’ also, a show is not only about goin’ onstage an’ reproducing your hits: these guys were the real deal an’ like the Pistols in their heyday, they were def floggin’ a dead horse in front of thousands.
CASTOR DAUDT: It was Nirvana. They had a sort of “free pass” to do that kind of stuff.
Darker rumors circulated about the reasons for the poor show.
IVAN BUSIC: We had the chance to talk a bit with Dave before the concert and, of course, he was a very nice guy. Unfortunately, Kurt was kind of “too fast” to talk to anyone, if you know what I mean … After a bit we saw him backstage very, very slow, if you know what I mean … Still, he shook our hands and was nice to us right before our sound check.
CASTOR DAUDT: I remember people talking backstage, and back in the hotel, saying that Kurt had taken a lot of pills, like Valium and stuff … the media saw it as funny and punk. We all had listened to Nirvana stories. I think nobody saw it as sad or bad.
BRUNO CASTRO GOUVEIA: Brazilians believed that Nirvana was uncomfortable with the fact that the festival was sponsored by a famous brand of cigarettes. Therefore, they did a non-show, played with anger, spite, ironically changing instruments, asking Flea to play trumpet … The critics loved it! It was all against the system! The public didn’t understand at all. There were some boos.
ANDRÉ STELLA: The festival was sponsored by a brand of cigarette and Kurt said he didn’t know that when he came to Brazil to do the shows. And he didn’t like it. I think his attitude on the show was because of that.
Given that Nirvana had been sold as hell-raising pranksters, everyone simply thought what they wished, whether that meant Cobain’s demons were on display, it was a protest gesture, or it was just rock ’n’ roll. Heedless of what people had made of his performance, Cobain simply retreated into seclusion and would be seen only fleetingly before it was time for the Rio de Janeiro gig.
JARDEL SEBBA, Fan: On the Tuesday before I had the chance to meet [Kurt] and Courtney (and Frances). They were the only act in this festival who were not in Copacabana (they were in São Conrado, which was a much more isolated neighborhood), but they used to hang out with the other bands, and I had the chance to meet them leaving this hotel. I was seventeen years old and had a fanzine … The curious part is that he was wearing the exact same clothes he was then wearing at the gig four days later.
ANDRÉ STELLA: We met Kurt a couple days before the show. My friends and I went to the front of the hotel where Kurt was staying and we waited there for him for a long time until he finally appeared … He was lovable, pleasant, and attentive with me and my friends. He talked with us a little bit and said they would play new songs at the show. He really paid attention to us.
Kurt may have been cordial to fans but this didn’t mean he had undergone a full recuperation.
EDU K: I saw Kurt stretched out on a sofa in the common backstage area with Frances and Courtney; he looked worse for wear and rather sick.
CASTOR DAUDT: Kurt was always with his wife and had a large group of people around him. Very inaccessible.
EDU K: Krist seemed to me like a very relaxed guy riding the eye of a hurricane thunderstorm. He was just hanging around backstage an’ came to our dressing room to share a J. We had a good laugh because I told him, “Man, Kurt looks so much like a fucked-up version of Shaun Cassidy!” He said, “Fuck yeah, that’s what we’ve nicknamed him in the band!”
CASTOR DAUDT: Krist was very kind and seemed happy to be there. He came to me in our dressing room and asked me who I was and which band we were. I explained that we were from southern Brazil, that we had opened the festival and were big fans of Nirvana … We had big laughs comparing Kurt with Shaun Cassidy and I presented him with very good southern Brazilian marijuana.
The relatively orderly show disappointed some, given Nirvana’s burgeoning reputation for chaos.
JARDEL SEBBA: Based on the news that was coming from São Paulo, everybody was a bit frustrated, as they did not change instruments nor break any of their equipment.
There was still enough fire, however, for one further defacement of rock as TV-friendly product for family consumption …
BRUNO CASTRO GOUVEIA: Simulating masturbation in front of the cameras of Globo TV (the major TV network in Brazil).
EDU K: Kurt took his cock out an’ did a mocksturbation scene in front of TV Globo’s (the biggest TV conglomerate in Brazil) cameras and it was all the rage all over the country. That moment in time, to me, was probably the last stand of punk-rock antics and teenage angst and alienation ever in the history of pop music … One thing is really funny, though: when we played São Paulo, there was a moment onstage where I was butt naked except for a sock on my cock—yeah, it was a Chili Peppers dark-humor pun. We were always the ones to pull that kind of party trick outta our hats an’ it caused a real commotion in the media. So, if you check Nirvana [and] L7’s performance in Rio you can tell that they were influenced by that.
South America brought Nirvana face-to-face with a choice: they could embrace a future as a stadium-filling Guns N’ Roses style carnival, or they could walk away. These shows were Nirvana’s window into a world where they were known not as interlopers from the underground but simply as one more bunch of American celebrities, kith and kin of bands they would never keep company with by choice. Nirvana made their call and would never play for such large audiences again. These three shows formed a bloody-toothed demonstration of Nirvana’s refusal to be packaged like Hollywood cigarettes or sold as light entertainment for primetime TV while, simultaneously, being a visible display of Cobain’s drug-frayed state. Regardless, it still thrilled those lucky enough to share it.
GABRIEL GUERRISI: In Argentina it remains a legendary show.
EDU K: It still resonates in my heart till these days.
CASTOR DAUDT: I’ll never forget that moment in my life! It was a very happy moment for us.
IVAN BUSIC: We felt very honored to be sharing the same stage with such a huge band as Nirvana … We had a lot of respect for them and Hollywood Rock is still in everyone’s memories. Such a great festival.
18.0
In Utero
February to September 1993
Between February 1992 and October 1993—the peak of Nirvanamania—Nirvana played only twenty-one shows, with just nine in the United States. Media hype, however, focused instead on the good news that a new album was imminent. Tentatively en
titled I Hate Myself and I Want to Die, renamed the equally sardonic Verse Chorus Verse, it was ultimately to emerge as In Utero in September. Of the fifteen-day recording session, the band played together for only three or four days with half the songs having been written before Nevermind back in 1991. It was hard to tell if Nirvana, as a creative unit, still existed.
At least the band made a clear statement by choosing to record with a man with impeccable underground credentials, an ally in Nirvana’s retreat from the mainstream: Steve Albini.
RICK SIMS: Steve was an invaluable friend and accomplice to the band … He gave us the money to record our second record, agreed to release it on Ruthless (although he convinced Touch and Go to release it instead), produced and engineered the Que Sirhan Sirhan record for a dollar! We fought and argued like crazy a couple of times during Que Sirhan Sirhan sessions about guitar levels or some shit … but that dude was/is great. But be warned: if you hang or collaborate with him he won’t couch his opinion. Bottom line is yes I trusted him yet sometimes needed to sort my own direction from what he thought it should be. Plus it was cool recording with him because [you] could hang out at his house, where he made great-sounding records, brewed Café Bustelo, and cooked orzo for us.
TED CARROLL: Albini was perhaps one of the best people I ever met in the world of music. Opinionated. Absolutely, but at the same time … he came out to L.A., stayed in our shithole of a house, recorded our first album, cooked us dinner (he is an excellent chef) and was a fun, actually sweet, guy. He even offered for us to stay at his mom’s house when we were in Missoula, Montana. We stayed at his place in Chicago several times—he had a BBQ for us—and In Utero seemed to be all the rage the second time we were there and recording our second (and last) album. Steve pretty obviously hates major labels, and I think he was offended by major-label interference with the record … not with Nirvana at all … He liked the album and said quite emphatically it was the record they wanted to make. Not him or his influence. But I never got the impression that he was upset or mad about anything. He was pretty detached from the stuff he did in that he saw it as the band’s baby … not his.