Nirvana headlining at Reading in 1992 was something you had to see, and if you didnt see it then it was something you pretended you saw. –Kerrang! (October 2003)
The staggering energy and intensity radiating from the stage never let up Cobains ravaged pop songs coming off like some dream marriage of the Sex Pistols and the Beatles, borne on bracing waves of distorted guitar noise. –Rolling Stone (October 29, 1992)
Ranked #1 in Kerrang! Magazines 100 Gigs That Shook The World and voted as Nirvanas #1 Greatest Moment by fans in an NME poll, Nirvanas historic August 30, 1992 headlining appearance at the UKs Reading Festival is one of the most bootlegged concerts in the annals of rocknroll. Filmed official footage of the event was colour-corrected video from the original film with audio sourced from the original multi-track masters and released as ‘Nirvana Live At Reading’ in 2009.
While the shows centerpiece was a performance of nearly the entire ‘Nevermind’ tracklist, also noteworthy were early performances of three as yet unrecorded songs which wouldnt be released until two years later on – ‘In Utero’s ‘All Apologies’, ‘Dumb’ and in its first ever public performance, ‘tourettes’. The career-spanning setlist also reached back to the bands 1989 Sub Pop debut album, ‘Bleach’, for ‘Blew’, ‘About A Girl’, ‘School’, ‘Negative Creep’ and first single ‘Love Buzz’ and even further back to the mid-80s for ‘Spank Thru’. Other songs from the Reading set would appear in studio form on the ‘Incesticide’ compilation later in the year: ‘Aneurysm’, ‘Been A Son’ and ‘Sliver’. Additionally, the band played a pair of beloved covers by two bands that helped shape the formative Nirvana sound ‘The Money Will Roll Right In’ by Fang and ‘D-7’ by The Wipers.
