Nirvana: Reading 92
“I remember showing up to Reading ’92 and there being so many rumours that we weren’t going to play, that we had cancelled. I walked backstage and some of my best friends in bands that were opening would see me and say, ‘What are you doing here?’ And I’d go, ‘We’re fucking headlining!’ And they’d be like, ‘You’re actually going to play?!’ I didn’t realise there was any question that we were going to play. I knew within myself I was questioning if we could play, but I knew we were going to try.” – Dave Grohl (2018)
Music can be deeply sensorial, involving small, intimate venues. It is about creating moments and memories that transcend the sound. I have long learnt that bands themselves exert a pull completely apart from music; indeed, from the first moment I picked up a copy of Nirvana’s Bleach in Track Records, York, it quickly epitomized something much more than music to me. Saving my school lunch-money throughout the week in anticipation of a Saturday morning trip to Track Records, York was a common occurrence during my secondary schooling.
I remember reaching up-to tack the top corners of a poster to my wall, the bindy-blonde haired, fringe-hidden Cobain frowning back at me. Chris Furber (2014) most concisely summed up a major part of the appeal of Cobain, in that “for someone who was consistently failing to rise from his bed with a jubilant, spring-heeled leap, and tended to instead towards a tardy lollop accompanied by a brow-beaten scowl, Cobain was bestowed with hero status in my eyes for being the patron saint of slackers” (Furber, 2014). Wide though this appeal was, Nirvanas music captured something personally for me at that point of my youth that few other artists did.
Now consisting of a Leeds sister event, the Reading festival has long maintained a habit of welcoming back performers who have become global stars since their previous appearance. In 1992, the festival hosted Nirvana for the second year running. In the preceding years, the band had become reasonably familiar with the UK touring cycle. Nirvana and Tad, had embarked on the Heavier than Heaven tour which travelled throughout Europe and covered the UK during October 1989. This tour included a date at the Leeds Duchess of York venue on the 25th October. The bands time in Europe would include the December 3rd LameFest at the 2000 capacity London Astoria and the band would join Mudhoney for a run of dates. In promoting LameFest, Sub Pop strategically looked to mirror the infamous Seattle LameFest which was held at the Seattle Moor Theatre just a few months earlier and was a resounding success. By bringing three of their best acts – Nirvana, Tad and Mudhoney, directly to London for a hyped showcase at the Astoria, coupled with a European run of dates, Sub Pop wanted to establish Grunge as an international phenomenon a style and a brand.
The Poster from the Sub Pop LameFest event
In August 1991 in between the recording of Nevermind and its release, Nirvana accepted an offer from Sonic Youth to open on a ten-date tour of Europe. Dinosaur Jr, Babes in Toyland and Gumball were also on the bill. Nirvana also got an afternoon slot at the illustrious Reading Festival. Kurt later had informed manager Danny Goldberg that these few weeks were among the happiest of his life. Filmmaker Dave Markey in an interview for Spin magazine in 2011 said “the moment that stands out for me is that Reading performance. Nirvana played at 2:00pm in the afternoon and they ended the set with ‘Endless Nameless’ in its entirety”. In retrospect, I realize that we really did get to experience that band at their very best, at their apex on that tour. (Goldberg 2019, 78).
The band had released their first record, Bleach, on Sub Pop in 1989, but despite critical approval, it had not troubled the charts. The Nevermind album and its groundbreaking opening single, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, were still a couple of months from release at the time of Reading 1991. With the release of The Pixies Doolittle, underground artists were now aware of what could be achievable with a more generous budget and resources at their disposal. Several key examples exist, but with the release of an album like Doolittle, a successful model had been presented which demonstrated a route and method in which underground bands could find a viable pathway to major success. Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden would go on to release radio friendly singles amongst their harder rock tracks. It could be said that it is no coincidence that the release of Doolittle in 1989 sits comfortably before the grunge emergence into world popularity. Indeed: Kurt Cobain himself cited The Pixies as the band which himself and Nirvana looked to for inspiration in how they would present both the recording of Nevermind and their live sound.
Grunge as an entity exploded and a magnifying glass was placed firmly on the city of Seattle. As Mark Arm wrote in the lyrics to Mudhoney track Overblown, “Everybody Loves Us, everybody loves our town, that’s why I’m thinking lately, the time for leaving is now”. Seattle was on the map and had gone global. In response, Reading had dedicated a day at the festival to these artists. The day consisted of openers The Melvins, Screaming Trees, Mudhoney and friends. The headlining show has become one of the most exciting sets ever performed.
Poster for Reading 1992
“It was sort of amateur. Bands now are quite polished. But when Nirvana went out, it was just stomp on the pedal, tell a bad joke, whatever. Just the energy of it, you know”. – Anthony Hodgkinson (Garcia 2011, No Name, 2010)
Given the events of the subsequent years following the Reading set and the tragedy that unfolded, it is easy to look back at such shows with a different perspective shifting the status of such shows to something of a legend. There is also no getting away from the fact that several alternative live recordings of Nirvana prove much tighter musicianship and offer more polished performances. Yet, the Reading set is a clear documentation of a band firmly in the midst of a trajectory to becoming the biggest thing in rock music for a generation, weather they wanted it or not.
Historically, the context of the show is a major part of its significance. Just the week before the show, on August 18th Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love’s daughter Frances Bean Cobain was born. Nirvana had cancelled their most recently scheduled European tour and the fall out from a recently published article in Vanity Fair article was raw (plenty about that elsewhere). Rumours Nirvana was not going to play the show had become rife. Kurt Cobain drug use stories were circulating, and the media had picked up that Kurt Cobain had been hospitalized with a drug overdose in Rome.
Kurt Cobain is wheeled to the stage by journalist Everett True
The band hadn’t rehearsed and as documented in Danny Goldberg’s memoir (2019, 169), Dave Grohl told the Scotsman, “I really thought, this will be a disaster, this will be the end of our career for sure. Kurt had been in and out of rehab, communication in the band had been strained. Kurt was living in L.A, Krist and I were in Seattle. People weren’t even sure if we were going to show up. We rehearsed once, the night before, and it wasn’t good. It turned out to be a wonderful show, and it healed us for a little while”.
Right from the start, anticipating the uncertainty of the crowd – then entrance onto the stage was pure theatre. Cobain was wheeled on stage in a wheelchair, pushed by music journalist Everett True, with a disheveled blonde Wig and hospital robe. Sitting in the wheelchair, Kurt began singing the first line of “The Rose” a song by Bette Midler recorded for a film of the same name, in which Midler played a rock singer struggling with the pressure of fame, who then dies of a drug overdose. Kurt then flops to the floor of the stage, as Krist in a mocking voice (yet to register the expansive crowd) mimes faux concern and announces to the expecting crowd “with the help of his friends and family he’s going to make it”. True later explained to Clash magazine that the wheelchair stunt “had been planned the previous night as a burn on those who’d been gossiping about Kurt and his wife Courtney Love, who’d just given birth to Frances Bean: ‘Kurt’s in hospital, Kurt’s been arrested, Kurt’s OD’d, Courtney’s OD’d, the baby’s been born deformed…”
Leaping to his feet, Kurt straps on the guitar and strides around the stage as feedback rings out and the intensity of opening track “Breed” erupts. Viewers of the live set are quickly familiarized with the mesmerizing dancing of Antony Hodgkinson, affectionately known as ‘Dancing Tony’. Hodgkinson recalls the Reading 92 show in that “It was the crowd that did it for me, in a way. I guess a lot of people expected Nirvana to not turn up, or that something bad would happen to Kurt. There was a lot of anticipation. You could feel the vibe, the electricity coming off the audience. And when the band came out and started into “Breed,” I came on, and it was just full tilt, really. It was quite a strange moment. It was like falling; there was no way of stopping it. You just had to go with it. It set the hairs on the back of your neck”. Hodgkinson bounded onto the stage as Kurt kicked into the opening verse of Breed, as the echoes of “I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, care” projected over the Reading crowd and through the rain…
“They were just like, ‘He’s going to be a bit weird. Fair enough.’ They let it pass. And they let me on stage with them”. – Dancing Tony (Allen, 2010)
Dancing Tony - mid-dance at Reading Festival 92
Hodgkinson describes how “in 92 it was, just because of the energy, I found it extremely hard to contain myself, so I was over-doing it. In a way, I was forcing myself to pace myself. It got to the point after the show where I had to wear a collar on my neck because I got whiplash. Like I said, it was a proper, energetic, punk-as-fuck show. Organized chaos. Incredible. Absolutely incredible. Anthony was the drummer for British rock band Bivouac in 1992. As a labelmate to Nirvana (both bands were signed to Geffen), Hodgkinson had got to know Nirvana, frequently picking them up from the airport and running errands when they came to England, hanging out with them at shows they played. He ended up dancing with the band at around nine shows, including Reading Festival gigs in ‘91 and ‘92.
“92 was the last time I ever saw Kurt, you see. It was quite strange. That was the last English show. There was a feeling that it was sort of a significant event. It was for me, anyway. I cannot quantify why, but I knew it was.” – Anthony Hodgkinson (Garcia 2011)
For me, a particularly poignant addition is the hat-tip to Portland Oregon band The Wipers. A band who’s early-mid 80s rock is regarded as foreshadowing everything that would emerge at the close of the decade. Cobain, Grohl and Novaselic do a perfect rendition of The Wipers D-7, capturing the essence of everything Greg Sage committed to tape. Within the Reading set. From the theatre of the entrance, the small smile on Cobain's face when he gets tens of thousands of fans to yell, "We love you, Courtney," to blood splattered across the guitar pickups, the pure wit of Cobain as he bursting into Boston’s - More Than A Feeling prior to hitting the opening chords of Smells Like Teen Spirit and Grohl pulling apart his drum kit while Kurt lights a cigarette — I'd argue it is one of the greatest shows and live records ever made.
Allen, J (2010) Catching up with Dancing Tony, https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/dancing-tony/catching-up-with-dancing-tony-from-nirvanas-live-a/
No Name, (2010) https://web.archive.org/web/20110826050734/http://rickish.tumblr.com/post/674022755/an-interview-with-antony-hodgkinson-the-guy-who-danced
Grohl, Dave (2018) https://www.kerrang.com/features/dave-grohl-on-headlining-reading-with-nirvana-it-was-a-genuinely-magical-moment/
https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/reading-nirvana/
Samuel G. (2011) Tony Hodgkinson https://www.grungeislife.com/tony-hodgkinson/
O’Hara C. (1999) The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise! AK
Furber, R. (2014) RIP Kurt Cobain: The Journey To The Nirvana Frontmans shrine. Sabotage Times [Online] Available at: http://sabotagetimes.com/music/rip-kurt-cobain-the-journey-to-the-frontmans-shrine (Date Accessed 20th December 2016)
Yarm, M. (2011) Everybody Loves Our Town: A History of Grunge. Faber and Faber.
Pavitt, B. (2013) Experiencing Nirvana: Grunge in Europe, 1989. Bazillion Points