TRANSCRIPT
(Nirvana plays 'Where did you sleep last night')
An iconic performance from a band that defined a generation.
Nirvana's MTV Unplugged performance in November of 1993 captured the band at the height of their powers, just five months before iconic singer-songwriter Kurt Cobain took his own life.
Kurt's Martin D-18E Electro-Acoustic guitar, used during the famous moment, is now the centrepiece for a new exhibition at London's Royal College of Music.
Only 302 of this model were ever made, and the singer-songwriter bought his second-hand from a guitar shop in Los Angeles.
Moments before playing the song 'Where did you sleep last night', first popularised by legendary blues player Lead Belly, Cobain joked about wanting to purchase the musician's guitar.
"Oh yeah, this guy representing the Lead Belly estate wants to sell me Lead Belly's guitar for $500,000."
Leading rock journalist Alan di Perna says there's some irony to this comment now given the current value of the very guitar Cobain was playing that evening.
"It's the most expensive guitar ever sold at auction: $6.1 million. It's significant because Kurt owned it. Kurt played it. It's the last guitar he ever played. It was used in the final phase of his career. It was used for the Unplugged program, which was taped 5 months or so before Kurt Cobain passed away. So for fans it's an iconic object."
Kurt Cobain and his band Nirvana pioneered the grunge movement of the late 80s and early 90s, combining introspective verses with clean sounds, and rocky, distorted choruses.
Nirvana produced three studio albums: Bleached, Nevermind and In Utero.
Cobain is often considered one of the key voices of his generation.
"He's very influential for songs that sum up the anxieties of Generation X, his generation. He once commented that 'I'm just like my fans'. He comes from a broken home, a somewhat impoverished background, and all of this is reflected in his songwriting."
The green mohair cardigan Kurt Cobain wore for the 1993 MTV performance is also on display.
After Unplugged cemented them as one of the top musical acts of their time, the band came to a sudden and tragic end, when in April 1994, Cobain died by suicide.
Despite being active for just a few short years of fame, Nirvana has continued to inspire an army of loyal fans.
"The big part of Kurt Cobain's enduring popularity is of course his tragic early death, there's no getting around that. And he's sort of one of the great martyrs of rock and roll, one of the great martyrs to fame. I think people identify with that. He's also a member of the so-called '27 club', rock stars who died at age 27: Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, I believe. There's something about that age and it tends to make people immortal in the memory of the public."
This is the first time the Royal College of Music in London has hosted an exhibition on rock, normally sticking to more classical genres.
One fan will also walk away with a piece of Nirvana memorabilia as the college are raffling a guitar pick once used by Kurt Cobain, for five British pounds a ticket.
For the students that attend this institution, curator Gabriele Rossi Rognoni believes there is something to learn from the late musician.
"We saw space to develop a story that was not only about an instrument but about a person with a complex background and with something that is quite significant today, which is as musicians and as public figures, you are under a lot of pressure. And this pressure can play out in different ways in life. And having the possibility to open this discussion clearly and working with someone who had had such an incredible public success but at the same time such a complex personal experience."
'Kurt Cobain Unplugged' opens in London on 3 June and runs until 18 November.
