{"id":6781,"date":"2025-11-18T11:07:54","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T11:07:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/kurt-and-cardie-how-nirvana-1993-unplugged-performance-let-the-audience-in-152204\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T11:07:54","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T11:07:54","slug":"kurt-and-cardie-how-nirvana-1993-unplugged-performance-let-the-audience-in-152204","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/kurt-and-cardie-how-nirvana-1993-unplugged-performance-let-the-audience-in-152204\/","title":{"rendered":"Kurt and cardie! How Nirvana\u2019s 1993 Unplugged performance \u201clet the audience in\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cIt\u2019s the one True Cross and the Shroud of Turin!\u201d declares Alan Di Perna, music journalist and co-curator of Kurt Cobain Unplugged<\/a>, an exhibition at London\u2019s Royal College Of Music Museum that reunites the guitar that Cobain played on Nirvana\u2019s legendary MTV Unplugged performance with the olive-green mohair cardigan he wore on the same occasion. The guitar \u2013 a 1959 Martin D-18E \u2013 is the most expensive ever sold in auction at more than $6m, while the cardigan sold for $334,000 in 2019 after being gifted by Courtney Love to Frances Bean Cobain\u2019s nanny.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s the one True Cross and the Shroud of Turin!\u201d declares Alan Di Perna, music journalist and co-curator of Kurt Cobain Unplugged<\/a>, an exhibition at London\u2019s Royal College Of Music Museum that reunites the guitar that Cobain played on Nirvana\u2019s legendary MTV Unplugged performance with the olive-green mohair cardigan he wore on the same occasion. The guitar \u2013 a 1959 Martin D-18E \u2013 is the most expensive ever sold in auction at more than $6m, while the cardigan sold for $334,000 in 2019 after being gifted by Courtney Love to Frances Bean Cobain\u2019s nanny.<\/p>\n

These items are accompanied by posters, records and other items that explore the history of Nirvana and explain the importance of their appearance on MTV Unplugged in December 1993. <\/p>\n

MTV Unplugged was \u201can important show for a lot of reasons,\u201d says Di Perna. \u201cCobain really took advantage of the opportunity to personalise the appearance and was active in designing the stage set. He was under a bit of pressure to make it a \u2018greatest hits\u2019 evening, but he wanted to show his influences with Bowie, The Vaselines and Lead Belly to create a sort of musical autobiography. It wasn\u2019t a generic episode, it was an event.\u201d<\/p>\n

MTV producer Alex Coletti recalls having to sandwich Nirvana\u2019s recording between similar performances by Stone Temple Pilots and Duran Duran on the days either side. He\u2019d flown up to see Nirvana in Massachusetts a few weeks beforehand to get Cobain\u2019s thoughts on the staging and set list, and was instrumental in presenting these to MTV. \u201cNirvana approached it with real thought,\u201d he says. \u201cThey wanted to do covers of artists that mattered to them and have special guests. Some people at MTV thought that might be somebody like Pearl Jam, but we told them it wasn\u2019t going to happen \u2013 they just had to trust the artist.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In typical Cobain fashion, Nirvana\u2019s special guests turned out to be the rather more underground Meat Puppets. The set was adorned with candles, drapes and funereal lilies, though Cobain\u2019s only instruction to the editor was to make sure they included some shots of him smiling. He was also permitted to bend the rules of the Unplugged format by running his Martin through a Fender amp disguised as a stage monitor, housed in a wooden box. <\/p>\n

After the final song \u2013 Lead Belly\u2019s \u201cWhere Did You Sleep Last Night\u201d \u2013 Coletti tried to coax one or two more songs from the band, perhaps even an acoustic \u201c\u2026Teen Spirit\u201d, to no avail. \u201cKurt said he didn\u2019t know how to top the last song, and he was absolutely right,\u201d admits Coletti. \u201cThey had carefully constructed the show and nothing would\u2019ve worked.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Cobain\u2019s death in April 1994, the intimate MTV Unplugged performance took on greater significance, not least because it looked as if the stage had been deliberately designed to resemble a wake. \u201cWe played it over and over \u2013 that was how we mourned him,\u201d says Coletti. \u201cBut at the time, I didn\u2019t think it was depressing. I thought the set was bright and light and rather beautiful.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cobain\u2019s Martin D-18E guitar \u2013 which he bought in 1992 for $5,000 \u2013 was one of only 302 made, the model seen as something of a failure because the magnetic pickups compromised the quality of the acoustic sound. In 2020, it was sold at auction by Frances Bean Cobain\u2019s ex-husband, who acquired it in the divorce settlement. The new owner, Peter Freedman, is a sponsor of the Royal College and was happy to lend it to them for an exhibition that entices rock fans into a space usually reserved for classical music. \u201cWe have designed it to appeal to both those audiences,\u201d says Di Perna. \u201cWe have secured a fabulous collection of vintage posters and rare vinyl, and will also explore Cobain\u2019s career in the context of the 1990s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coletti believes this is an important celebration of a historic occasion. \u201cNirvana really did let the audience in on who they were as a band and what inspired them.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Purchase Uncut\u2019s Ultimate Music Guide to Nirvana<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The post Kurt and cardie! How Nirvana\u2019s 1993 Unplugged performance \u201clet the audience in\u201d<\/a> appeared first on UNCUT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s the one True Cross and the Shroud of Turin!\u201d declares Alan Di Perna, music journalist and co-curator of Kurt Cobain Unplugged, an exhibition at London\u2019s Royal College Of Music…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,3580,1520],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-kurt-cobain","category-nirvana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6781\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}