Nirvana: Live at the Paramountscreening, Perth (23/09/11)

Mon 26th Sep, 2011 in Gig Reviews

For anyone who thinks they remember it, it is hard to believe it has been 20 years since the release of Nirvana’s Nevermind and the years have been surprisingly kind to the sound. The recent premiere ‘one night only’ screening of their Paramount concert in 1991 is now the closest we’re ever going to get to being there. It is easy, with the passage of years and ideology, to forget just how good Nirvana was, and how they seemed to arrive just in time to say what a whole lot of ‘disaffected youth’ were feeling. With the opening strains of Jesus Don’t Want me for a Sunbeam it all came flooding back.

Nirvana: Live at the Paramount was the only concert known to have been recorded on film, and seeing it on the big screen in surround sound, it was just possible to forget the cinema for a while, and appreciate the tortured, angsty genius that shaped a genre and a generation of music, and ended far too soon. There was applause, cheering and singing when people were swept up in the moment, and no doubt more than a few eyes moistened in lament of lost potential as the credits rolled out the reminder that it was a too-brief moment in time, never to come again.

Two of the things that the live recording bought into sharp relief are how many bands have been influenced by Nirvana’s sound, and how genre creep can damage perceptions as time passes. Though they weren’t the first (nor, some would argue, were they the best) band of their kind at the time, they were the ones who made grunge visible, audible, accessible.

After Nirvana, the word ‘grunge’ was used to describe, or market any new band that appeared, but seeing the band do it on film made it clear that calling everything else grunge does not make it so. Over the years, the genre definition has become so watered-down and bastardised that it means about as much as ‘punk’. The film was an exhilarating reminder that the band was just reflecting the world back at itself and never intended to birth a genre. Perhaps it is time for the word to claw back some meaning from the corporate marketing machine… or something.

Whatever, it is worth seeing. On your giant TV with a bunch of mates and a few drinks and the volume turned up loud enough to rattle your neighbours’ windows.

Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam
Aneurysm
Drain You
School
Floyd the Barber
Smells Like Teen Spirit
About a Girl
Polly
Breed
Sliver
Love Buzz
Lithium
Been a Son
Negative Creep
On a Plain
Blew
Rape Me
Territorial Pissings
Endless, Nameless