Watch Nirvana play ‘Nevermind’ songs in Seattle, 1991
Just two weeks before Nevermind was set to hit record shelves in September of 1991, Nirvana tumbled into a familiar location: Beehive Music & Video on 45th Street in their hometown of Seattle, Washington. While Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic had technically formed the band in Aberdeen, Washington, nearly a half-decade earlier, Seattle had become the home base for Nirvana. That’s what Cobain was sharing an apartment with new drummer Dave Grohl after they had returned from Los Angeles after recording Nevermind a month prior.
According to Charles Cross’ Cobain biography Heavier Than Heaven, the Beehive in-store was one of the first times Cobain truly grasped how massive Nirvana were about to become. When they arrived, the line to see the band was already out the door, so the members absconded to the Blue Moon Tavern across the street to try and calm their nerves. That didn’t work, as fans recognised them as spied on the members through the glass windows.
Regular in-store performances were usually nothing special: shake a few hands, sign a few autographs, maybe perform a song or two and go home. With a massive crowd waiting to see them, Nirvana decided to play a complete set that included several songs from the album they were there to promote – Nevermind. The album was still eight days away from an official release, but loyal Nirvana fans had probably heard some of the songs in the years, months, or even weeks before the album’s release.
That being said, a full setlist of just Nevermind material wouldn’t cut it. With that in mind, the band also leaned on some of the favourites from their first album, Bleach. Songs like ‘Floyd the Barber’, ‘School’, and ‘Negative Creep’ were the most familiar and subsequently got the biggest reception. Little did these fans know that they were getting an early preview of future hits like ‘Come As You Are’, ‘Something in the Way’, and most notably, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’.
According to Novoselic, this might have been the exact turning point when Cobain realised he was in over his head. Although he doesn’t specify the location in Heavier Than Heaven, Novoselic does recall that the following occurred at an in-store performance a week before the release of Nevermind, making it more than likely to have taken place at the Beehive.
“Things starting to happen after that,” Novoselic said. “We weren’t the same old band. Kurt, he just kind of withdrew. There was a lot of personal stuff that was going on. It got complicated. It was more than we bargained for”.
Check out the in-store performance below.
