Twenty five years ago, Nirvana's MTV Unplugged In New York was recorded.
It was meant to be release as a double album, including this acoustic set and an electric live set.
(Due to Cobain's death, the album was released almost one year later as a single album. From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah, released in 1996, was supposed to be the other half of this double album.)
It was 1994' Christmas Eve, when I listened this album for the first time.
It had a month or so in stores.
My dad gave us money as a Christmas gift.
He drove us to a store where my brother and I used to buy music.
My brother bought Kiss My Ass: Classic Kiss Regrooved. It was a tribute album on which several artists such as Lenny Kravitz, Lemonheads, Anthrax, Gin Blossoms and Dinosaur Jr. covered Kiss' songs.
I bought Unplugged In New York on cassette.
There were a couple of posters of the album cover in the store.
Though it was the first time I saw this propaganda, it called my attention.
The band looked so mysterious and focused on the concert.
They didn't seem the classic punk rockers I thought they were supposed to look like.
Grohl was in the back of the drum set. Novoselic at the left. Smear at the right. Cobain in the middle, wearing a fuzzy cardigan, jeans and Converse sneakers, looked so attractive.
Immediately, I wanted the album so bad and I was afraid that copies were unavailable.
Still remember the chills it provoked me to watch it in stock.
For the last six months, I just had listened Nevermind from a cassette a friend of mine had recorded for me. I wanted to have my first Nirvana album.
It was a sad Christmas Eve. It was cold and dry.
My parents wanted that my grandparents went to our house to have dinner with us, but at the last hour they called by the phone and said that they wouldn't be with us.
My grandparents didn't like each other a lot.
My mom served the dinner on the table.
My dad had a long face.
His sadness was so contagious.
He stood up and hang up the telephone.
As dinner was cooling on the table and my dad was trying to convince her mother to accompany us, my mom was in the kitchen.
She murmured something. Maybe she couldn't believe that my dad was more concerned about his mother than about his sons.
I took advantage of the moment and I put some whiskey on a glass.
It was just a taste, not even a quarter of the glass.
I stood up and walked away.
I climbed the stairs, hiding the glass of whiskey underneath my cozy jacket.
When I arrived to my room, I closed the door and I put the cassette on my old player -it was a late 80's Panasonic with a turntable included- and sat on the floor.
I was naive to live albums, so it was a big surprise to listen to the crowd clapping at the beginning of the album.
I was also naive to Unplugged albums, so it was a big surprise to listen Kurt Cobain speaking to the audience at the beginning of the first song.
About A Girl blew my mind.
Thought how was it possible that a noisy band as Nirvana had so nice and quiet songs.
I wanted to have a guitar and to learn how to play that song.
I took a sip of whiskey.
It was so hot that I almost cough.
It hurt my throat so bad.
Wondered how was it possible that people drove wild with that kind of alcohol.
It seemed to be a beverage for outlaws.
I was 14 years old and all I had drank was a beer or two, in a party of my old high school classmates.
Come As You Are sounded so quiet and different from the Nevermind version.
The drums sounded so quiet, too.
Cobain's voice sounded a lot more emotive, too.
At the end of the song, Cobain spoke again. He introduced the next song. It was a cover of a band called The Vaselines and it was a rendition of an old Christian song.
It was included an accordion.
Then Cobain spoke again. He guaranteed that he will screw the next song.
It will be a cover of David Bowie's The Man Who Sold The World.
At times, the feedback was so notorious that it didn't seem an acoustic concert.
Cobain said that he will performed the next song by himself.
Pennyroyal Tea gave the chills.
I took another sip of whiskey and felt that alcohol was having an effect on me.
Obviously, it was just my impression.
(Did I mention that I just served less than a quarter of whiskey in the glass?)
I desired to be in that concert, listening to Kurt Cobain almost breaking through this song.
Also I wanted to have a guitar and to learn how to play this song.
On my cassette version of Unplugged In New York, is available an unedited version of Pennyroyal Tea. Cobain got wrong in the last part of the song. It was so evident and also so emotive. It reflected for a brief period a nervous guy singing to a bunch of strangers and whose nerves made him to forget the song.
The side A of the cassette ended up after Dumb and Polly.
Dumb sounded so sad. It seemed to me that it was about a drug addict feeling hopeless.
The sound of cello was new for me. Never had thought that it could fit so nice in a supposed punk band.
Polly was not my favorite. Thought it sounded better on the original version, maybe 'cause it was originally an acoustic song.
Side B started with clapping and soft drumming.
The acoustic version of On A Plain left me speechless.
The original version of Nevermind was so noisy that I couldn't even pay attention to the lyrics and to the bass lines.
I couldn't stop imagine myself in that concert.
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