Dave Grohl Wants to Release All-Star Nirvana Reunion Club Show Footage

2018-07-05T11:53:21+00:00July 5th, 2018|News|

Larry Busacca/Getty Images
Joan Jett, Dave Grohl of Nirvana, Lorde and St. Vincent perform onstage at the 29th Annual Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony at Barclays Center of Brooklyn on April 10, 2014 in New York City.

Joan Jett, St. Vincent, and J Mascis performed during the 2014 Brooklyn after party gig.
Dave Grohl says one of the most legendary Nirvana shows that most people didn’t see may be released some day. In a wide-ranging new interview with Rolling Stone, the band’s former drummer muses about the Foo Fighters’ place in rock history, the loss of Tom Petty, his love of Lil Pump, why his mom needn’t have worried that Madonna would “snatch him up” when he first became famous and the fate of as-yet-unreleased footage of the after-hours show he and Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic played at the tiny Saint Vitus bar in Brooklyn hours after Nirvana was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014.

The hush-hush gig came after a group of fired-up women including Lorde, St. Vincent, Joan Jett and former Sonic Youth singer/bassist Kim Gordon played with Grohl, Novoselic and Nirvana guitarist Pat Smear at the official Rock Hall ceremony. Following that legendary set, the whole gang was joined by Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis and Deer Tick’s John McCauley at Saint Vitus for a set that touched on 19 Nirvana classics.

“When we realized that we were going to do it, I just called the people from my production company and said, ‘We need to film this,’ and we loaded some cameras in there and and shot it without knowing what would ever come of it,” Grohl told RS about the impromptu shoot of the club gig that had Jett taking vocals on “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” “Breed,” “In Bloom and “All Apologies,” with Mascis singing “Drain You,” “Pennyroyal Tea” and “School.”

“But it would be a shame for that evening to be only a memory and and we’ve got it. And it was fucking great. It was cathartic and everybody involved, I think, understood that they were part of something like a dream…I remember playing and looking and seeing [Sleater-Kinney’s] Carrie Brownstein in the front row in the pit singing along to every song and, you know, getting to play drums behind Joan Jett or, god, playing “School” or fucking “Pennyroyal Tea” with J Mascis. It really was amazing. It was something else. Someday, I’m sure everybody’ll see it.”

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