The Fans Remember Kurt

From: Curmudgeon
Subject: i miss the comfort in being sad...

hey there everybody.

- i saw nirvana, the breeders and half japanese at the wallace civic center (a hockey rink/ planetarium)in fitchburg, ma on 11/12/93. this was the closest nirvana was coming to boston (my hometown), and the girl i went with (who i was sweet on) had stood in line for 2 hours to get the tix. when we got there (we missed half japanese), we both agreed to go as close to the barrier (it was general admission) as we could to see kurt. the breeders rocked, and then nirvana came out. when kurt came on i flipped out and was dancing and singing along, blissful to the extreme. but my friend was getting all woozy from being pushed against the barricade, and some asshole was trying to molest her, so we pushed our way out so she could get some air. i tried to get her up some stairs, but some security guard said no. i told him fuck you. and he tried to beat the crap out of me until he noticed my friend unconscious and got some water for her. after that, we went up to get some cokes, and we stood in an aisle near the pit. some middle- aged lady was yelling at us to move, and i, tired of getting pushed around all night, told her to go screw. this prompted her boyfriend who looked like bluto from popeye to start pushing me down the stairs and calling me a faggot, and was trying to beat the crap out of me. so i threw my coke in his face, jumped on top of him, and slammed his head into the concrete steps, and my friend and i ran to some seats at the far end of the rink by the soundboard.

i wasn't all pumped up about this. i don't like to fight unless i have to in self- defense, and in less than twenty minutes, two macho boneheads had tried to beat me up. all i came to the concert for was to see my hero and my favorite band perform. so i was sitting with my friend in the back of the rink, shaking and upset beyond words at these people who know not what it means. as if he was reading my mind, kurt played "heart- shaped box," one of the most important nirvana songs to me personally. i started crying.

a few songs later nirvana stopped playing because the guy who tried to molest my friend had molested some woman crowd- surfing. krist said:"we saw you! and we're going to get our security people to beat the crap out of you," and left the stage. after 10 minutes they came back onstage. but before kurt started playing he said this: "i know that most of you out there like us understand what we're trying to say. but as for the rest of you, I FUCKING HATE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" i am not going to even try to explain the significgance of his statement to me personally- i think it is something i will think of my entire life. i can say one thing- that is the moment that symbolized everything i love about kurt and nirvana, and made a permanent place for kurt in my heart. i am sharing this because i think you all might understand and might learn something about kurt you didn't know that might help you. that's what this group is all about, isn't it?

sorry to ramble on so, but i thought you had a right to know. your fellow negative creep,

-curmudgeon,

P.S. there's one thing i should mention. i later got a bootleg of this show, and he never said "I FUCKING HATE YOU!!!" but he talked a lot, and then they played "jesus don't want me for a sunbeam" the way they did it on "unplugged" w/ the accordion and cello. it was the first time i heard it, and it's one of my favorite nirvana songs ever, and he sung it with such defeat and resignation and defeat that the song said it "I FUCKING HATE YOU!!!" subliminally. no matter how i think of it, it is still one of my most powerful memories.

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