Like most other bands, Nirvana got its start playing for empty rooms. In this archival clip from the new Kurt Cobain documentary Montage of Heck (named for a mixtape Cobain made in 1988), a very young Nirvana jams in what looks like someone’s living room, the band outnumbering the onlookers sitting against a wall.
“If we played together in the house for a couple of hours and if two people stopped by, we considered that a gig” narrates Cobain, his voiceover pulled from an old interview. “We had an audience of two people — locals who hated our guts and thought it was terrible music.” He’s not kidding — there are literally only two people in attendance for the “concert.” We can’t even imagine how much fans would pay for a ticket to a private Nirvana house show today.
