18 Oct 26th–NOv 1st, 2023 phoenixnewtimes.com phoenix new Times | music | cafe | film | culTuRe | NighT+Day | feaTuRe | NeWs | OPiNiON | feeDBacK | cONTeNTs | “Pennyroyal Tea” and a furious rendition of “School.” The band’s friend Lori Goldstein joined in on cello as Nirvana treated the crowd to an acoustic rendition of “Polly,” a song about a true story of kidnapping, rape and torture that Cobain had once read about. The audience lapped it up. Novoselic was amused by so many of the Arizona crowd holding up their cigarette lighters during the show, which was an uncommon occurrence at a Nirvana concert. “You’re supposed to save the lighters for ‘Dream On,’” the bass player said jokingly, referring to the Aerosmith song. He then comically sang a couple of lines in horrendous fashion. Cobain followed this by playfully singing a few lines from the 4 Non Blondes hit song “What’s Up?,” provoking some high-pitched squeals from the audience. “This is an avant-garde number,” Cobain informed the crowd before they played the offbeat “Milk It,” during which the singer screamed so furiously that his voice cracked and almost blew out toward the end of the song. Nirvana then performed a blistering rendition of their anti-rape song “Rape Me.” The lead singer’s voice cracked again while singing the chorus of “Territorial Pissings,” before the band played their most famous song, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” for the appreciative Arizonan faithful. Cobain deliberately messed up the guitar solo and nobody seemed to care. Nirvana then left the stage after playing the sublime “All Apologies,” only to return several minutes later by popular demand and perform an encore consisting of the grinding “Blew” and their heaviest number of all, “Endless, Nameless.” The band then began wildly smashing their instruments and amplifiers as the crowd cheered them on. Cobain had sarcastically played the strands of a Led Zeppelin solo in reference to Nirvana’s new status as an arena rock band and attacked one of the winged mannequins with his guitar. He then gently dived into the Arizonan crowd, which proved a mistake when the songwriter was almost torn by pieces by some overexcited fans. “They immediately just started grabbing for me and trying to rip my flesh off for souvenirs,” Cobain later said. “Kurt did a crowd surf with the audience holding him up and passing him around in a big circle,” Bob Bell recalls. “It seemed very dangerous to me, but he pulled it off.” Cobain made it out of the crowd alive and headed backstage with his bandmates before the largely satisfied Arizona faithful began slowly filing out of the coliseum. “Of course, I got the T-shirt and the CD and I wish I still had both,” Tom Bell says. Nirvana did a sit-down interview back- stage for MTV News following the show in which the band casually discussed their concerns about playing in larger venues and talked about some of their experi- ences. Arizona may have been a primarily conservative state, but there had still been some of the usual high-jinks from the more mischievous young attendees inside the coliseum. Dave Grohl had been hit in the head with a stick at one point. Pat Smear was amused when someone in the audi- ence threw a Germs T-shirt at him in refer- ence to the guitarist’s former punk rock band. Some shoes were also tossed onto the stage, and Cobain recalled a bra being thrown in his direction that night. The interview wound down with Cobain being asked about his overhyped “feud” with Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder. “We never had a fight ever, I just have always hated their band,” Cobain replied with a mischievous grin. Nirvana and Mudhoney left Phoenix to play a show the following night in Albuquerque, N.M., but Nirvana would never complete their scheduled “In Utero” tour. Having spiraled deeper into clinical depression, heroin addiction and frustra- tion with the course of his music career, Cobain would end his own life with a shotgun on April 5, 1994. He remains a symbol of empathy, fascination and creative inspiration for millions of disaf- fected youth almost three decades later. “It’s hard for me to walk down the street and not see a Nirvana shirt every single frickin’ day,” the late songwriter’s daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, recently said. Nirvana’s concert at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum wasn’t the greatest show they ever played, but the legendary grunge band made a profound impact on many of the Arizonans in attendance, none more so than young Tom Bell. “Nirvana stands the test of time,” says the now-39-year-old, who was inspired by the band to become the punk rock enthu- siast he remains today. “They were so simple. So pure. So much energy.” Thousands of other young Arizonans readily agreed with him that memorable night. When Nirvana Rocked from p 17 “NIRVANA STANDS THE TEST OF TIME... THEY WERE SO SIMPLE. SO PURE. SO MUCH ENERGY.” A 1993 advertisement promotes the band’s appearance at Veterans Memorial Coliseum. (Image courtesy of Arizona State Fair)
