08 Aug 2024

Hymn to Nirvana

3 minute read

On 13 December VIAGE will take you back in time. Aberdeen, The Tribute to Nirvana, will transport you back to November 1994 when Nirvana’s live album ‘MTV Unplugged’ was posthumously released.

Six months earlier the untimely demise of frontman Kurt Cobain abruptly signalled the end of the band. A deplorable ending to what started out as a fairytale.

Voice of a generation

In the late eighties in Seattle, US, a new music genre emerged. Grunge combined the taut simplicity of punk and the distorted guitars of heavy metal. In 1987 in Aberdeen, a small town of just 16,000 inhabitants southwest of Seattle, two young musicians found each other: singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic. They formed the core of their newly founded band called Nirvana. Following the unexpected success of their single ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ from their sophomore album ‘Nevermind’ (1991), the popularity of the band and the genre as a whole exploded. The media hailed Kurt Cobain as ‘the voice of a generation’ and Nirvana were considered the flag bearers of the disenfranchised youths of Generation X.

Nirvana are one of the top-selling bands of all time with over €75 million albums sold worldwide. In their short-lived stint as a mainstream act (1991-1994) they were the recipients of an American Music Award, a Brit Award and a Grammy, as well as seven MTV Video Music Awards and two NME Awards.

On 18 November 1993, a few months before the death of their frontman, Nirvana performed a now legendary acoustic set at the Sony Music Studios in New York. Directed by Beth McCarthy, the gig was first aired on MTV on 14 December 1993. The album MTV Unplugged in New York was released on 1 November 1994. Becoming the band’s top-selling album after Cobain’s demise with over seven million copies, it stands to this day as a fin de siècle hymn to an entire generation.

Aberdeen

Since 2019 Aberdeen is a tribute band that faithfully reproduces Nirvana’s entire repertoire fuelled by the grunge legends’ signature energy and passion. In our theatre The Viage, they will recreate the atmosphere of that iconic evening, with a faithful musical reconstruction of the full set list. Aberdeen will conclude the evening with a fully electric concert that gained legendary status after the TV broadcast: MTV Live & Loud.

This is as close to Nirvana as it gets so don’t miss out on this unique opportunity!