LiveNIRVANA.com > Sessions History > Television Appearances & Related Rehearsals > September 8, 1992 - Edwin W. Pauley Pavilion, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, US
LIVE NIRVANA SESSIONS HISTORY:
September 8, 1992 - Edwin W. Pauley Pavilion, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, US
Artist
- NIRVANA
- Cobain, Kurt (vocals, guitar)
- Grohl, Dave (drums)
- Novoselic, Krist (bass)
Crew
- Gallen, Joel (producer)
- Gowers, Bruce (director)
Set
- [?] Rape Me
- [?] tourette's
- [?] others?
Best available sources
| Source | Quality | Complete | Runtime | Lowest Gen | Tracks Featured | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PRO CLIP #1 | 9.5 | No | TBC | TV>VHS(1)>DVDR | • TBC | Shown during the end credits of the 09/09/92 MTV Video Music Awards broadcast. |
Notes
On September 8th, Cobain received a day-pass from Exodus Recovery Centre to rehearse with NIRVANA for the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards. (1)
There were doubts whether Cobain could, or should, play an awards show
in his state of health but, with pressure from his management, Cobain chose to
go ahead with the show. He hated going to awards shows,
explained
manager, Danny Goldberg, and he didn't always like being recognized, but
he worked very hard to get nominated for those awards, and he worked very
hard to be recognized.
(1)
Controversy erupted on the first day of rehearsals, when Cobain
announced that he intended to play a new song. He was all excited about
it, and acted like it was a gift,
remembered MTV's Amy Finnerty. Much to
the horror of the network's executives, who had expected to hear Smells Like Teen
Spirit, the band cranked out Rape Me. (1)
Finnerty was immediately pulled into a production trailer, where she was
lectured by her bosses about the band's song choice: They thought, Rape Me
was about MTV! Oh, come on,
Finnerty protested. I can
assure you that he didn't write the song for or about us.
Cobain
had written the song back in early 1991, but by 1992 it had
also come to represent a more personal metaphor for how he felt treated by the
media, his managers, his bandmates and MTV (as the MTV executives had astutely
realized). (1)
A battle of wills began between MTV brass and Cobain, with Finnerty and Gold Mountain acting as go-betweens. MTV threatened to pull NIRVANA from the show and stop playing their videos; Cobain said that was fine. Then the network upped the ante and threatened to stop playing videos by other artists managed by Gold Mountain. Cobain eventually reconsidered his song choice, but only after being told that Finnerty would be fired if the band performed Rape Me. (1)
References
- Cross, Charles, R., 2001. Heavier Than Heaven. Hodder & Stoughton, London. ↑