Last night (January 30), a remarkable assembly of all-star musicians came together in LA for FireAid, a massive benefit concert that aimed to raise money for those affected by the devastating fires that tore through Los Angeles earlier this month.
The bill was stacked enough as it is, but one of the biggest performances of the night came from a band that wasn’t even on it: Nirvana.
The three surviving members of the group – guitarist Pat Smear, bassist Krist Novoselic, and drummer Dave Grohl – played four Nirvana classics, each with a different singer in the captain’s chair.
The band started off with a ferocious take on Breed, featuring St. Vincent accessing her inner punk growl.
Naturally, the alt-rock A-lister also, with a sleek, black-finished version of her Ernie Ball Music Man signature guitar, highlighted the performance with a noisy, free-spirited solo that would almost certainly have made Kurt Cobain proud.
Wielding one of her favored Jazzmasters, Sonic Youth legend Kim Gordon then took the reins for Schoola scrappy highlight from the band’s debut album, Bleachusing the offset’s whammy bar for all it’s worth.
After that it was Joan Jett’s turn, for a break-neck version of the band’s ultimate thrasher, Territorial Pissingsfor which Jett used her sticker-adorned Gibson Melody Maker.
The mini-set was then rounded out by a powerful All Apologies with Grohl’s daughter, Violet, on vocals, and Gordon returning to the stage to fill in for Novoselic – who picked up the accordion – on bass.
But for Lorde, it was the same group of frontwomen the surviving Nirvana trio played with at their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction performance in 2014.
“We thought, ‘Wait, it has to be all women,’” Grohl told Rolling Stone of the lineup of singers that same year.
“‘Don’t even ask anyone else. If we can fill the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame performance with these incredible women singing Nirvana songs, then we’ll have achieved our own revolution.’ It also added a whole other dimension to the show. It added substance and depth, so it didn’t turn into a eulogy. It was more about the future.”
“Joan Jett, who formed the Runaways, changed rock & roll for women,” Grohl continued. “Kim Gordon, from Sonic Youth, was this beacon of light in the predominantly macho, male underground punk rock scene. St. Vincent is a wicked musician that’s pushing boundaries now.”
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