Sometimes I miss living in the Tampa Bay Area, because I got to go to so many concerts of my favorite goth bands. I would go to like three or four concerts a year. Tampa has a thriving goth scene and I took full advantage of that. But then in 2019 we moved to Rockledge on the eastern Florida coast. Nothing but boring suburban people driving either golf carts or twenty foot tall pickup trucks around. Nowheresville. It reminds me of the town from Edward Scissorhands (which incidentally was filmed in Florida). Not even the obscure underground bands I love would play anywhere near Brevard County. Nothing interesting ever happens here. They do have pro wrestling shows sometimes, and actually a cool local theater that puts on plays and occasionally shows silent films, but that’s about it. Orlando isn’t that far, and a lot of bands play there, but it’s far enough to where we would need a babysitter for our kid and have to spend more money on gas on top of the concert itself; it’s a 45 minute to one hour drive depending on traffic. That’s the other reason why my days of going to concerts all the time came to an end by the way, parenthood.
But you know what, one day something DID finally happen here. I usually hate seeing ads when I scroll through Facebook, and I do my best to ignore them, but one happened to catch my eye. Nirvanna was playing in Cocoa, the next town over. I did a double take. Then I noticed the extra “n”. Ohhhh. Clever. (The band later explained that it’s pronounced “Nirv-annah”, like the announcer says at the beginning of their music video for “In Bloom”). So it’s a tribute band. The tickets were affordable enough, $15. So I decided, eh, why not? You win this time, capitalism. You got me to CONSUME. Ever since then I’ve gotten ads for other tribute bands playing all over the country too. I’m not flying to the other side of the country to see a Pearl Jam tribute band, Facebook.
First, I suppose I’ll give some background about what led me to the point where I would go to a concert of a Nirvana tribute band. It was a long series of events. Firstly, Nirvana has always been there in the background of my life. Nevermind came out when I was five years old, and “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was playing all the time on MTV. I grew up listening to rock radio stations which of course played their music. My first ever mixtape had “Lithium” on it, and they were regulars on a lot of my old mixtapes. But I still never really dug deep into their discography until the last couple of years. Followers of my blog may know that I’ve been on something of a grunge/90s alternative rock binge the past almost two years, returning to the music of my childhood after years of being into metal and then goth (which is still my number one genre). Alice in Chains was the band that lured me in after I heard “Get Born Again” for the first time in 20+ years. After listening to all the Alice in Chains I could find, I moved onto Nirvana. I had really only heard what was played on the radio up to that point, but for such a relatively short-lived band there are tons of demos, bootlegs, live shows and even good fan-made music, and after listening to Nirvana for over a year now I’m still finding new stuff. Songs like “Heart-Shaped Box”, “Sappy”, “Dumb”, “Something in the Way”, “You Know You’re Right”, they all really speak to me. I like music that’s dark, thought-provoking and emotionally powerful, mostly regardless of genre. I’ve gotten to know about Kurt Cobain too, his life, his art and his philosophies, and I find him really relatable. I feel like we have a lot in common. A fellow tortured artist. But I know there are millions of people who feel the same way.
Anyway, the night of April 7th. I had been suffering from gout all week, but I was still determined to go to this concert even though I needed a cane to walk. The venue, The Attic, was a place I had probably walked past many times but never noticed, hidden up a narrow staircase above a bar, in a nondescript corner of Cocoa Village, the touristy area of Cocoa. Due to my gout and back pain I needed to secure a spot, but because I didn’t arrive early enough, a barstool was the best I could get. The crowd was small, maybe 25 people or so at most. A lot of Gen X people in the audience, older than me, and a few younger people. The general vibe of the show was kind of like a pre-fame Nirvana concert. Like seeing them in 1989, except for some of the song choices of course. Like if you watch this old concert, it was a lot like that. The lead singer was a young man who pulled off a good Kurt Cobain cosplay, wearing the big sunglasses and snow hat, a green sweater and ripped jeans. He did a good job sounding like Kurt Cobain too. Not 100 percent, but he clearly has studied how Kurt Cobain sings, down to the slight “yodel” vocal pitch shifts that was his style.
The band was open to requests many times throughout the show. I was too shy to request anything myself. I thought about requesting “Moist Vagina” just to see peoples’ reaction but ultimately chickened out. They weren’t able to play everything requested though. Someone kept requesting one of their more obscure songs, “Mr. Mustache”. The band knows 52 Nirvana songs, but they haven’t learned them all yet. I think they were later unable to play “Sappy” either, another one which never made it onto an official album, which was a bit of a shame. The three of them did well with what they did play too. I had to remind myself how Nirvana sounded live versus how polished they sounded on the albums when making comparisons. They sounded closer to the live performances obviously. I really liked how they nailed that scream after the bridge in “Drain You”, that was definitely a highlight of the performance. There was a nice mixture of high energy moshing songs and the slower, drearier songs such as “Something in the Way” and “You Know You’re Right” that are my favorite. The much-overlooked debut album Bleach was well-represented, along with songs they were obligated to play like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Lithium”.
A lot of the banter between the bandmates were direct quotes from some of the more famous Nirvana concerts. There were a lot of little easter eggs for those of us who have binged through old Nirvana concerts on YouTube that most people probably wouldn’t catch. The singer began “About a Girl” by saying “This is off our first record, most people don’t own it.” just as Kurt Cobain said at the MTV Unplugged concert. When they reluctantly played “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, they instead started playing “More Than a Feeling” by The Pixies, just like Nirvana did at the 1992 concert in Reading. They also talked smack about Axl Rose, which is very in-character, and talked about the rivalry they had backstage with Guns n Roses at the 1992 MTV Music Awards. We also got the inspirational quote from the booklet of the Incesticide album, wherein Kurt Cobain explicitly tells racists, sexists and homophobes not to buy their albums or show up at their concerts. Being in the unfortunate part of Florida that I’m in, I was wondering if that quote would anger anyone in the audience, but it was met with cheers, and anyone who didn’t like it kept their mouths shut. Toward the end of the concert they wanted everyone to come up to the stage, and I felt a bit guilty for staying in my seat but with all my aches and pains it just wasn’t happening. Leave the mosh pits to the young whipper-snappers I guess.
In the end I got to hear most of my favorite Nirvana songs, the only way you could ever hear the songs played live these days, by impersonators. But you know, there’s nothing wrong with impersonators, particularly of bands that aren’t active anymore and never will be. It was a lot of fun and I’m glad I went. I will be paying attention to any concerts that might come through this small town from now on thanks to this. I wouldn’t mind seeing Nirvanna again one of these days.
No comments:
Post a Comment