After the death of Kurt Cobain in 1994, it seemed pretty definitive that Nirvana, the band who became the reluctant flag bearers for alternative rock back in the early 1990s, was finished.
Kurt, after all, had been an icon to millions of young people across the world. Understandably, the band splintered. Dave Grohl and Pat Smear went on to the Foo Fighters, while Krist Novoselic more or less quit music all together, choosing instead to focus on a career in politics.
However, there have been recent murmurings that the surviving members of the legendary grunge act might be working together again in some capacity. The ball started rolling when Krist Novoselic showed up on Foo Fighters' "Wasting Light" LP in 2010. Then, the bassist found himself appearing in Dave Grohl's upcoming documentary about "Sound City" studios. It had even been suggested that the three surviving Nirvana members had found the way into a rehearsal room.
Last night, those speculations became a reality when the surviving members of Nirvana took to the stage together, fronted by none other than former BeatlePaul McCartney. The group (The Nirveatles if you will...) performed at last night's (December 12th) Hurricane Sandy benefit concert, debuting a new song titled "Cut Me Some Slack". Paul McCartney prefaced the performance with the following speech:
"So, recently, some guys asked me to go and jam with them. So I showed up like you do, y'know, ready to jam and... um... in the middle of it these guys kept saying 'well, we haven't played together for years', y'know. So... the penny finally dropped, and I finally understood that I was in the middle of a Nirvana reunion. Ladies and gentlemen; Mr Dave Grohl, Mr Krist Novoselic and Mr Pat Smear. We're gonna do the song we jammed now. First time we've done it live."
The track itself seems to be sitting somewhere between "School", the heavy hitting track from Nirvana's 1989 debut record "Bleach" and The Beatles' proto-metal classic "Helter Skelter". There are even some rhythmic flourishes from Grohl that seem reminiscent of his work in supergroup Them Crooked Vultures.
McCartney and Nirvana's performance wasn't the only grunge-classic rock team up of the evening. Former Pink Floyd honcho Roger Waters was joined by Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder on a rendition of the Floyd classic "Comfortably Numb". Other artists at the benefit show, which took place at Madison Square Garden, included The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen and The Who.
But how do you feel about the idea of seeing Nirvana sans Kurt Cobain? Cobain was the driving force behind the band back in the day, holding sole or principal songwriter credit on pretty much all of their material. And yet, what Nirvana and McCartney debuted at last night's concert seems to be in the spirit of the band's classic material, while taking on a life of it's own.
it's not really Nirvana, is something thats grown out of nirvana. its new, exciting, and none of them seem to be just trying to cash in on sounding all grungy. And oddly enough w/ the sound of pauls voice in that vid I kinda think he could pull off nirvana covers fairly well.
I somewhat agree that it'd have been cooler if John Lennon was still alive and fronted instead. Paul was still great and it was still really cool but Lennon was my favorite and was the biggest influence on Kurt out of the Beatles.
Jesus, since when is Courtney Love the go-to ambassador for all things Nirvana? Isn't she just a talentless crackwh*re who had horrible, horrible sex with Kurt on a regular basis?
After reading about this yesterday, I honestly didnt think that today Id be saying this, but that was pretty damn good!
I think we were all expecting Nirvana covers so thank christ that wasnt the case.
I wouldnt call this a Nirvana reunion though, thats just a lame 'hook' to get people watching, but whatever it was for charity it gets a pass. I also dont think it sounded very Nirvana-like but still a pretty interesting track. Would definately like to hear more from this, could be interesting...
Novaselic was only on "I Should Have Known," though. I would kill to see the three of them do an album together - especially if it was as good as the song they played last night.
I think he was talking about disliking frontmen in general. He said in that same quote that he liked Led Zep and The Who but hated Robert Plant and Roger Daltry.
Firstly, I will say that they sounded great together, and the song was really cool!
But I think UG, and even McCartney, describing it as a Nirvana reunion is fairly misleading. Personally I would only think of it as a reunion if they played Nirvana songs.
To be honest though, all talk of 'reunion' aside, it's just so cool that they decided to do this
I thought the performance was killer! It wasn't really an actual Nirvana reunion show or anything, it was the remaining members of Nirvana coming together again on stage in 20 years and that was pretty awesome! The song kicked ass too.
hearing them play gives the feeling that they were just as important to the sound of the band, grohl drumming and chris' bass lines gave a good base to sit on for kurt's guitars and screams. it was not all a one man show, maybe most of it, but they were still crucial to the band.
I quite liked the song when I heard it last night.
And in a way I'm both happy and sad that they didn't play any older Nirvana stuff.
Happy because Paul would have butchered the hell out of whatever they played since NO ONE can replace Kurt.
Sad because I wanted to hear what that would have sounded like....
I think Kurt would have loved this, he loved the Beatles albeit being a bigger Lennon fan than any of the rest, but I'm sure he still would've felt honored, I mean come on, who wouldn't?!?
Both contextually and musically I didn't really care for this. I respect everyone's opinion that they thoroughly enjoyed it, but between the framework the media coerced, the millions of flashy bulbs, the song sounding like an amped up McCartney staple, and the fact that this celebrity cesspool was the venue which housed the first reunion of surviving Nirvana members in 20 years just didn't do it for me. Personally a bit disappointed. Sorry to rain on the parade.
I guess Dave felt bad for turning Paul down for TCV when he was interested in playing bass in the band and decided to do another "Supergroup" project with him instead.
If you know any of Nirvana's history then you would know that this is huge in terms of influence on Kurt Cobain, he loved The Beatles; or so the book Heavier Than HEaven has led me to beleive
This was one of the most intriguing one off events ever. I saw McCartney on his last tour date before this show, and watching his band performing on TV and then with 3/4 of Nirvana was shocking, I thought I was hallucinating! The song was interesting. and it was an original? Cool.
Yeah, but Alice in Chains' main driving force was always Jerry Cantrell. Nirvana wasn't just Kurt's voice, it was Kurt's songwriting style and there's really no one who can replace that.
I was actually disappointed about the song. I was also under the impression before the performance that they were also going to perform a few Nirvana classics as a nod to Kurt. Maybe Courtney somehow sabotaged that.
After commentary and complaints, I expected this to be terrible. Boy am I surprised to see the performance rocked. Holy shit McCartney - not bad at all for a 70 year old man. Raspy and rocking performance.
Please explain how he wasn't? Was it because he wasn't a founding member? In that case Grohl wasn't either cause he was like the 5th drummer. But, Smear joined after Nevermind to tour with Nirvana. He also did MTV Unplugged with Nirvana, and recorded In Utero as well. So tell me, how was he not a member, ever? There were news on MTV that Nirvana added a member as well, and Kurt said that Nirvana was meant to be a 4-piece, not a 3-piece. Not to mention all 4 members were really good friends, especially Dave and Kurt. But in the Foo Fighters documentary movie, you can tell how in the short time, Pat and Kurt got pretty close. So please, tell me how he wasn't a member?
Yes, Wikipedia, is a never ending source of 100% correct knowledge that cannot possibly be incorrect in ANY way, shape or form. However, if you decide to watch Back and Forth (excellent documentary,) both Grohl and Smear noted that Smear was considered an official member within the band and was due to be announced as an official member which was made redundant due to a minor case of death on Kurt Cobain's behalf.
I'd actually love an album by them, but they would have to call it something else if only to reduce the eventual cry from die hard fans that Paul isn't Kurt. Hopefully it happens, but it probably won't. Great song though.
I think the only proper way to do a nirvana reunion would have Grohl singing and playing guitar, Smear on guitar, Chris on bass, and the drummer from the foo's on drums. I believe that if you were to do it, only Dave could do it justice, even though we would all rather have him on drums.
I actually really liked it. I thought it was a pretty good song. I'm going to buy it and I'm not even a Nirvana OR Foo Fighters fan. I'm a pretty tough music critic as well lol.
Song sounds pretty bad ass... Paul's slide work on it gives a cool feel. Hard though to feel like a "reunion" when Smear has played off and on with Grohl since Nirvana disbanded, and as the article pointed out, Novoselic did some bass on a Foo's track. I also heard a Grohl interview on Nirvana where he mentioned that he still keeps regular contact with Novoselic and they have remained friends.
The article and even Paul's speech make it sound like all these guys hadn't been in a room with their instruments since 1994, and Paul and them just kind of met up and boom.
Still cool to see though. Off topic - I read somewhere a few weeks ago that Hendrix really wanted Paul to do a record with him back in the day, but Paul was just to busy to be able to give it a commitment. Now that would have been sick as well.
Am I the only one who sees the extremely clever combination of marketing and also class that was employed here? They mentioned just enough references to "Nirvana reunion" to generate the mass media coverage and associated (free!) promotion but then they didn't play any Nirvana songs (the classy thing to do). Well played!
If this is a one-time happening, then it is cool...
But if it's something that will result in a album, then could they at least call themselves something else? Because Nirvana is not Nirvana without Kurt - then it's just most of the origninal members, working together with Paul. Don't get me wrong, this sounds great, but I would not call it a real "Nirvana-reunion", since Nirvana will (wether we like it or not) forever be synonymous with Kurt Cobain's music.
Bottom line, if they create a different name to put their music under (ex. Nirveatles, or something better), then it will be awsome to hear what remains of Nirvana together with Paul, but it just seems wrong to call it a "Nirvana-reunion"...
^ - meant to be a response; might as well disregard my above comment.