Live at Reading

by

Nirvana

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Gather round, kids, put away your diaries, log off Twitter for five minutes as I tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was this band who were so sickeningly heavy, so on point, so ridiculously furious and DARK, so in-your-face righteous that they shredded everything in sight. Including the bands that had the unfortunate opportunity to open for them, knowing there was no chance to come close. This album sorta introduces you to what they were capable of, especially the last third of it, where the songs get rampagingly ugly and downright MEAN, starting with a caustic version of "All Apologies", sounding nothing like any version you've heard before. The end of their short career may have shown an even darker side, incapable of even pulling it together long enough to really move, but this set is as close to their peak as you can get, a concert for the ages that is almost laughable when you look at the mind-numbingly BAD bands they played the same festival with, as shown on the inside cover (Charlatans? Curve? Buffalo Tom? The frickin' WONDER STUFF?) See, kids, even bands of their time couldn't hang. So you shouldn't feel all THAT embarrassed that My Chemical Romance, Vampire Weekend, and Deerhoof make noise that sounds like a blender by comparison.

I know, it's rough. I'm getting all generational on you, and that's not fair. As if it wasn't bad enough that they decided to play "On A Plain", "Negative Creep" and "Been A Son" back-to-back-to-back, which is reason enough to buy twenty copies of this and give it to all your friends. If that doesn't convince you of the unfortunateness of your losing the genetic lottery and ending up only reading about this band, then let's rub it all the way in by playing the version of "Aneurysm" here, which basically destroys the version from "Muddy Banks Of the Wishkah", a version I used to think was the best Nirvana recorded moment, a great version which PALES in comparison to the one here, which could kill whole forests. I would also like to draw your attention to the version of "Stay Away", which I plan on playing 7,000 times in a row tonight as I run around my yard revving up a chainsaw. Or how about the version of "School", which you need to be screaming at the top of your lungs next Monday in Algebra as you throw furniture around your classrooms and frighten your overpaid, ignorant teachers out of their similarly unenlightened stupor. Some things never change.

You can call me a snob for rubbing your collective noses in the fact that this band had no equal, and I was lucky enough to witness something like this for the brief moment it was around. But I'm not really a snob, because I have hope, someday, that at least ONE of you could rise up and at least make an EFFORT to sound this mighty, this completely insanely GOOD so we can all sit back in amazement. But I doubt it.

Being a long time, die hard Nirvana fan since I was a kid in the early 1990's, and going to my local record den and finding the latest imports and bootlegs by my favorite band, I procured this very concert probably a dozen years ago. I always thought this to be a great performance, with high energy, a great set list, and that "something" that keeps you putting in your illicit buy again and again. Having said that, I was pretty thrilled to learn that the 8/30/92 Nirvana show at the Reading Festival was being officially released. I picked up the cd this morning, along with the 20th anniversary edition of Bleach's release, the DVD was "still in the back and hasn't been put out yet" - so says the couldn't-care-less salesman at my local Wal*Mart.

On the way to work, I popped in the Reading CD and was overly pleased with the improvement on the sound quality from bootleg copies of this show that have been circulating for years. - I was, however, totally irritated with the general production of this performance for it's release, and by that, I mean this; they took out a lot of the between-song talking, and goofing around, which is, in part, what made a Nirvana concert a Nirvana concert. Now, before everyone starts blasting me, I understand that some of it had to be deleted for continuity, space on the CD, etc, etc.. But how do you edit out the band mocking themselves by turning the intro of 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' into a jam on Boston's 'More Than A Feeling' with Krist singing (poorly)? Or when Kurt announces that the next song is for his then 12-day-old-daughter, and his wife, and proceeds to ask the crowd to yell 'Courtney We Love You!" - That song was 'All Apologies'. Now we all know that no one likes Courtney Love, but that was a moment, that accurately reflects the vibe of the times in Nirvana's history, and should have been left in. Like Courtney, or hate her, it was a pretty touching moment, and a rare thing for Kurt to do at a concert.

Another that that drove me absolutely up a wall about this CD is the insertion of fake crowd cheering at the beginning of every song, and it sounds like the same canned sound clip of the crowd cheering is used in a good portion of the songs in the set. This is especially annoying, and almost comical to hear by the end of the disc. It really takes away from the experience, especially after listening to the bootleg version for so long, whose quality was not nearly as good, but at least it was real, and raw. To put this all in a nutshell, The show was epic enough on it's own, don't mess with it.

Anyone even a little familiar with the time line of Nirvana's music knows that songs like 'All Apologies', "School", "Sliver", and "Been a Son" were virtually unknown songs in 1992, so hearing an erupting cheer when they start playing 'Been a Son' sounds totally ridiculous. At least to me.. Maybe I'm being overly critical, but it's really annoying, and like I said earlier, comical to listen to by half way into the show.

Stick to the DVD, people. All the "little things" are in there that give this show it's charm in the first place, and yes, the stuff that was deleted from the CD.. but the same annoying addition of fake crowd cheering is on both the CD and the DVD.. Oh well..

-Phiber Optik