Michael Azerrad - Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana

A Main Street Books edition of this book was originally published in 1993. It is here reprinted by arrangement with Doubleday.

Come as You Are. Copyright 1993 by Michael Azerrad. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information, address: Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc., 1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036.

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First Broadway Books trade paperback edition published 2001.

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has cataloged the previous edition as:

Azerrad, Michael
Come as you are: the story of Nirvana / Michael Azerrad. 1st ed.
p. cm. A Main Street book T.p. verso.
1. Nirvana (Musical group) 2. Rock musiciansUnited StatesBiography I. Title.
ML421.N57A9 1993
782.421660922dc20
[B] 93-19821

eISBN: 978-0-307-83373-0

v3.1

FoR JuLie

AcKNowLedgmEnTs

My deepest thanks to the following people for their assistance and their encouragement.

Kurt & Courtney
Chris & Shelli
Dave
Chad Channing
John Silva, Bethann Buddenbaum, and Michael Meisel
Susie Tennant & Chris Swenson
Randy Wagers
Mark Kates, Rochelle Fox, Luke Wood, Dennis Dennehy, and
Chrissy Shannon at Geffen
Charles Peterson
Tracy Marander
Neil Ross
Bruce Tracy
Scott Moyers
Sarah Lazin and Laura Nolan
Ms. Burnyce Channing
Wendy OConnor
Marysarah Quinn
Kerry Fried
Amy Finnerty
Nils Bernstein
Mark Doctrow
Beth Cohen
Matt Sweeney

No thanks to: Lunatic Fringe (high score: 29,715, level 40)

Its April 9, 1993, at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. Eleven thousand peoplegrunge kids, jocks, metalheads, main-streamers, punks, little kids with their parents, hippie-typeshave come from as far away as Los Angeles and Seattle to see Nirvanas first American show in seven months, a benefit for Bosnian rape victims. Besides a seven-week club tour in late 1991, the closest most American fans had come to seeing the band in concert was their appearance on Saturday Night Live over a year before. So much has happened in the meantime: drug rumors, breakup rumors, lawsuits, and about five million more copies of theNevermindalbum sold worldwide. And muchhasnthappeneda U.S. arena tour, a new album. Its a crucial show.

The band walks out on stage. Kurt Cobain, sporting an aqua cardigan, an inside-out Captain America T-shirt and decomposing blue jeans, gives a nervous little wave to the crowd. Hes dyed his hair blond for the occasion; a mop of it obscures his eyes and indeed the entire top half of his face.

From the opening chords of Rape Me, the band plays with explosive force, salvos of sound catapulting off the stage and into the crowdBreed, Blew, Sliver, Milk It, Heart Shaped Box. Toward the end, they play The Hit and even though Kurt mangles the opening chords, the moshers on the floor go berserk. As matches and lighters are held aloft during Lithium, everyone in this cavernous barn is reminded of exactly why they love Nirvana.

Although Chris Novoselic and Kurt are at least thirty feet apart, they move and react to each other as if they are much closer; the communication is effortless. Midway through the set, Kurt calls over to Chris, I feel great! I could play another hour! And they do, packing twenty-four songs in an hour and a half, including eight songs from the upcoming album. The crowd applauds the new stuff enthusiastically, especially the ferocious assault on Scentless Apprentice and the majestic All Apologies, which dissolves in a haze of mantra-chant and feedback.

Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam watches from the side of the stage; not far away is the Melvins Dale Crover. Frances Bean Cobain is upstairs in her dads dressing room with her nanny; Courtney comes down just in time to dodge a plastic bottle of mineral water that Kurt has thrown without looking. She waves at him sarcastically.

At the end of the set, Kurt, Chris, and Dave Grohl disappear behind the drum riser and pass around a cigarette as they discuss what songs to play, then return for a seven-song, half-hour encore climaxing with Endless, Nameless, the mystery track that closes Nevermind. As the band accelerates the songs main riff, it becomes a trance. Kurt walks across the top of his amp stack. Its not that high off the ground, but hes riveting anyway, like a potential suicide walking along the ledge of a building. The music speeds up even more. The guitars are squalling, Chris has unstrapped his bass and is waving it in front of his amp; Dave Grohl flails with precise abandon. As the music peaks, Kurt falls hard onto the drum set and drums and cymbal stands fall outward, like a carnivorous flower opening up and swallowing its prey. Show over.

People ask each other if hes all right. Its not showmanship. If it were, theyd put down padding first. Maybe its a geek stunt, like the kid in grade school who would make his nose bleed and smear the blood on his face so the bully would leave him alone, a case of Ill hurt myself before you can from a guy who opened the set with a song called Rape Me. Perhaps its an homage to two of Kurts favorite Stuntmen, Evel Knievel and Iggy Pop. Or is it that hes so jazzed up from the music that hes impervious to all physical harm, like a psyched-up swami who can walk across hot coals? Judging by the audience, all agog and aglow, that last explanation seems to fit the best.