Nirvana, probably the finest rock band of the 90’s, if not period, are a band that released merely three studio albums yet still managed to destroy hair metal and take over the world. Songs such as ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and ‘Come As You Are’ are played many times every day globally, appreciated by people from every continent on the planet. They showed their live ability on the releases ‘MTV Unplugged’ and ‘The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah’, but another side of the band, particularly in the early years, was their bootlegs. Bootlegs as I’m sure you know are audience recordings of live shows, seen by many to by illegal, but by me to be a godsend. Having managed to obtain this from a ‘connection’ two weeks ago, what it gives you that none other recording ever will, is the true atmosphere of an intimate gig and the earlier punk influenced tracks that would later appear on ‘Bleach’. Recording quality isn’t always great, as you can imagine, but it’s a top notch experience from a band that I have the utmost respect for.
Performed in the LA Forum in 1989, it’s a glimpse at the early stages of Nirvana’s career, and the raw power that they had prior to over-production et all. ‘School’, a blistering track best heard on ‘Muddy Banks’, is a fantastic opener, getting the crowd going and showing Kurt at his vocal best, error free. Scoff, Love Buzz, Floyd The Barber and Dive all follow with equal conviction, carrying the CD along very nicely. I won’t pretend the discs perfect, because its far from it - editing mistakes, incorrectly named tracks, and even half of ‘Negative Creep’ completely missing, but what is here is brilliant and for a collector such as myself, it’s a more than welcome addition. ‘About A Girl’, undoubtedly Nirvana’s breakthrough track in 1989, is performed beautifully and although my personal preference is the acoustic bliss of ‘MTV Unplugged’, as a raw live song, it’s bloody brilliant.
It was always thrown at Cobain that he couldn’t ‘hack’ it live, and that his vocals simply couldn’t last, but it’s of my opinion that is just what made them so special. Kurt never pretended to be perfect, he knew his guitar playing wasn’t quite up to Hendrix standards and he knew that his vocals weren’t always at their best, but he didn’t care. Fans, such as myself, loved him because of who he was, what he stood for and the music he made. Therefore Nirvana became known to not be a great live band, but if you wanted a true riot then they were the group for you. Another of the finer tracks here is Been A Son (incorrectly labelled as She Said), it, as the majority of other tracks here, found it’s way onto the bands debut album Bleach, and is performed here with all the menace you’d expect.
Bootlegs, will always experience problems. Being audience recordings, they could suffer from muffled sound quality, crowd noise and general disruption, but it’s those elements that make bootlegs stand out from the ‘official’ releases. Negative Creep, one of the finest tracks ever made is the mainstay of the second half of the album, a half which is in large, far superior to the first 7 tracks, and offers a lot more of the ‘recognisable’ Nirvana tracks. Cobain’s vocals do suffer form time to time due to the quality of the recording, as well as the fact that his vocals simply weren’t as strong as they were to eventually be, but like I said, the joy of these recordings is that they are different, they are far more personal, and definitely give greater insight to the band. The cover of the disc, strangely enough, doesn’t show Cobain, rather an up close shot of bassist Krist Novoselic and Chad Channing (the then drummer), which conveys Kurt's message of not wanting the spotlight, nor the attention.
If perfection is what you look for in your music, than this most definitely isn’t for you, but if an up close, personal glimpse of a great band in there early years is your thing…..than get looking. It won’t give you the big hitting tracks and studio production gloss of Nevermind and In Utero, but it does give the ‘true’ Nirvana live experience - loud, raw and in your face !
Track Listing
1 - School 2 - Scoff 3 - Love Buzz 4 - Floyd The Barber 5 - Dive 6 - Polly 7 - Big Cheese 8 - About A Girl 9 - Make It Big 10 - Mr. Moustache 11 - Breed 12 - Been A Son (mislabelled ‘She Said‘) 13 - Negative Creep 14 - Stain 15 - Blew
Total Time 43:14
For further information on Nirvana bootlegs please visit .........
www.digitalnirvana.net/bootlegs
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