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I saw NIRVANA on 1-7-94 at Seattle Arena in Seattle, Washington, their second to last U.S. show, the last one being the following night. This show is the bootleg CD 'Rape Me', minus the first song, Radio Friendly Unit Shifter. The opening act was supposed to be TAD but from what I understand someone from TAD had make a remark about Courtney and were dropped from the bill. I can not confirm this. Instead the Butthole Surfers opened up. I arrived 1/2 way through their set and wouldn't have minded missing it all. I wasn't impressed. When NIRVANA came out, they just walked on stage in the dark and started RFUS. The sound was pretty good after a song or two. Their playing was really tight and Kurts voice sounded great. There was no communication between Kurt and the audience until just before they started 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', when Kurt said something to the effect of 'This song made Seattle the most livable city in America'. I would say the highlight was 'Lithium'. It was an amazing sight the way the crowd reacted to this song. As usual Krist did most of the talking throughout the show. At one point some guy stage dived off of the amps (about a 10 ft. drop) and landed on his head in the pit. He layed there for quite some time and eventually paramedics came in to work on him. After one song Krist made a wise-crack about the guy but I believe it's missing from 'Rape Me'. Kurt was wearing a shirt unlike any I have ever seen him wear before. It was a long sleeve white button up shirt with collar that was REALLY big, hung to his knees. I have seen this shirt in one picture, a book called 'LOSER', which I have scanned and placed on my web page here. Kurt seemed very 'not into it' during the whole show. He just played his songs. He didn't show a lot of enthusiasm, which backs up what he said in his suicide note about feeling like he's punching a time-clock before going on-stage. There was no Endless, Nameless jam at the end although Kurt did destroy the large trees that were on stage by knocking them over and breaking the limbs off. The encore consisted of 'Blew', not sure if there were others. I was sitting on the right side of the stage (near Krist) and both Courtney and Shelli were sitting down below me. The show was good for the songs and for getting a chance to see them (one of the last chances as it turned out). But as I said before, Kurt's heart just wasn't in it.
Curdt -- "I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it"
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