Join Charles on Seeing Them Live for a ticket stub story from a Nirvana concert in October 1993. Charles recounts an event he documented in his book, ‘Ticket Stub Stories: A Memoir of Live Music’, when he attended the second show at the Aragon Ballroom and the band, upset by a critical review, did not perform their hit 'Smells Like Teen Spirit.' Discover how Kurt Cobain's frustration led to a memorable, albeit puzzling, night for fans, and learn about the backstory involving Chicago Tribune writer Greg Kott. Tune in to explore the connection between rock legends and journalistic critique.
In this episode on Seeing Them Live, Charles shares one of his ticket stub stories taken from the pages of his book, Ticket Stub Stories: A Memoir of Live Music’. This story details his experience at a Nirvana concert in October 1993. Charles recounts the second show of a Nirvana concert he attended where the band, upset by a critical review in the Chicago Tribune, did not perform their hit 'Smells Like Teen Spirit.' Discover how Kurt Cobain's frustration led to a memorable, albeit puzzling, night for fans, and learn how an intriguing interview with the Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune, may have subtly influenced Kurt Cobain's behavior and actions at the concert.
BANDS: MEGG, Nirvana, The Used, U2
VENUES: Aragon Ballroom, Chicago
[00:00:38] Hi, this is Charles Zona, the host of Seeing Them Live, and this is another installment of what I call a ticket stub story. These are short concert stories featured in my book, Ticket Stub Stories: A Memoir of Live Music, but with some added information. The last ticket stub story I did was in Season 2, Episode 8, called Bono Loses His Voice.
[00:01:02] And I'm hoping segments like these will encourage you, our listeners, to share your concert stories with us. So, the title of this episode is No Teen Spirit in Chicago. This story is from a concert experience I had in late October of 1993. At the time I had tickets to see Nirvana, and as we all know, they were the premier act of the grunge genre at that time.
[00:01:29] Nirvana played two shows at the Aragon Ballroom, one on October 24th and the other on October 25th in support of their new album In Utero. I attended the second show on October 25th. That night, Nirvana's performance and imagery reminded me of their MTV Unplugged performance. After some time had passed, I realized that the band hadn't played their iconic smash hit Smells Like Teen Spirit.
[00:01:59] So I glanced at my watch and I noticed it was almost 11 o'clock right after that. Kurt Cobain said, "We have to go. You guys got effing ripped off. Do you want me to break something?" I took this to mean the City, or at least the Aragon, had some sort of rule requiring bands to finish playing by 11:00 PM. Whatever it meant, Kurt was pissed and wanted to make it up to us.
[00:02:27] He then added, " The sound in this place sucks. Next time we play here, you should all bring a pillow with you." I figured Kurt meant that if we all had pillows with us, the sound in the Aragon would be improved. And with that, the band left the stage. Of course, there would be no next time because within six months, Kurt Cobain was gone.
[00:02:47] When I wrote this brief passage in my book, I started to wonder to myself if perhaps I somehow missed them playing Smells Like Teen Spirit. Did I maybe go to the bathroom while they were playing the [00:03:00] song? Then I thought of the many times I've used the bathroom at the Aragon, which is located in the lower level of the venue and you can still hear the band playing and usually make out the song as well.
[00:03:12] But nevertheless, I did begin to doubt myself and I recently did an interview with the musician, MEGG, which is MEGG, in all caps, and she had similar doubts about a concert story that she had retold over the years. Was it actually true in her mind or maybe in an embellishment of sorts?
[00:03:33] In MEGG's case, her story was about Burt McCracken from the band The Used. McCracken had fallen off the stage and ended up with a compound fracture on his elbow. I later confirmed her story prior to our interview with a YouTube video. Her account of what happened, checked out.
[00:03:51] So, I began to doubt myself about the Nirvana story. Surely Nirvana would've played their most famous song. I searched for recordings of the show just to see if maybe I somehow missed it, but I found nothing. Well, 32 years later, I've come up with a reason as to why Nirvana didn't play Smells Like Teen Spirit in Chicago at the Aragon Ballroom.
[00:04:15] The short answer is that Cobain was pissed about a review of the concert from the night before, written by Greg Kot, who at the time was a writer for the Chicago Tribune, and now is the co-host of one of my favorite podcasts, Sound Opinions. It was on an episode of Sound Opinions where I began to put the pieces together.
[00:04:35] The episode is called RIP, Steve Albini, published May 10th, 2024, and this is where Greg Kot and his co-host Jim DeRogatis paid tribute to the late Chicago sound engineer Steve Albini. Albini recorded Nirvana's In Utero album, and the portion of the episode where Kot starts talking about the published concert review, starts around the 42-minute timestamp of the Albini episode.
[00:05:03] As Kot states, after the recording of the In Utero album, he called Albini and said how he heard that the executives at Geffen records, Nirvana's record label, weren't happy with the recording. According to Kot, the record executives said, the recording wasn't polished enough. Kot also tried to get Cobain on record about this matter for a story he was working on, but Kurt didn't want to talk about it.
[00:05:30] So Kot publishes the story, which was later picked up by Newsweek Magazine. Cobain reads the article and gets upset with Kot and cancels an upcoming interview he had scheduled with Kot at Cobain's House in Seattle. And from there, things escalate. So, when Nirvana came to play the two shows at the Aragon Ballroom in October of 1993, Cobain banned, Kot from attending the shows.
[00:05:56] But, as Kot explains, he talked to the people at Jam Productions, the outfit that runs security and the concerts at the Aragon and other venues in the city. And they assured Kot that nobody was gonna tell them who to ban from one of their concerts. So, they let Kot into the show. Kot attends the first show and publishes the review the next day.
[00:06:18] The review is relatively short, about 506 words long, but one sentence regarding the sound at the Aragon stuck in Cobain's craw. Here is Kot's sentence as it appears in his review. " Much immediacy was lost. However, as the Aragon's horrendous acoustics, occasionally muffled Cobain's voice and muddled the guitar, while lights and strobes worth of a Paul McCartney tour turned the stage into an airport runway."
[00:06:49] After reading Kot's review of the show, Cobain calls Kot, and the first words out of his mouth are, "how did you get into this show?" Later that same day, Kot gets a call from a Jam Productions staff member who tells Kot that Cobain was in a foul mood all day because of the article, and Cobain blamed Jam and the Aragon for the poor sound quality.
[00:07:13] And so that's the rest of my story. Was Cobain sticking it to the Aragon by not playing Smells Like Teen Spirit and then apologized later to the fans with his cryptic remarks to the crowd that night about bringing pillows to the next show? Without the context of Kot's. Concert Review of Nirvana's Show the night before, fans like myself were left wondering why they didn't play Smells Like Teen Spirit that night.
[00:07:40] It's possible that Cobain just didn't wanna play the song that night, but I have to think Kot's review played a role in that decision. Well, that's it for this story. I hope you enjoyed this segment of Seeing Them Live.
[00:07:52] As always, thanks for listening, and if you have a concert story, we would love to hear it. The process of being a guest on Seeing Them Live is quite painless. We'll do a lot of the groundwork to help you develop your concert story. So if you're interested in becoming a guest, shoot me an email at czona, that's a letter czona@seeingthemlive.com.