Nirvana - Live in London, Astoria, 3/12/1989

Nirvana's first performance at the Astoria and the last gig of 1989.

Nirvana and Tad have exhausted all resources but have finally made it to the end of the grueling European tour, which saw sickness, communism and mental breakdowns.

Tonight the two bands join Mudhoney, the bigger band of the three at this point in time, for Lame Fest UK '89. Nirvana are on first of the three bands, followed by Tad with Mudhoney being the main act.

It's a very standard setlist but with a few fun moments. After School, Kurt leaves to fix a broken string, leaving Dale and Krist ample time to jam to multiple songs. Hand Of Doom by Black Sabbath is in the first jam session somewhere, followed by the Stooges I Wanna Be Your Dog. The jam session is finished with Fascists Eat Donuts by Pop-O-Pies (I think) (Thank you LiveNirvana for this information). Both Hand Of Doom and Fascists Eat Donuts aren't listed in the setlists because I personally wasn't able to locate them, but I'm quite familiar with I Wanna Be Your Dog so I was able to locate that one.

Sappy is played tonight. It showed up periodically around this time period. Molly's Lips also makes an appearance.

You'll notice a couple things with this recording. If you've listened to From The Muddy Banks Of The Whishkah, you'll hear the intro, Polly and Breed sound familiar. Those performances are from this gig, but because I don't want to risk this gig being taken down, I've used the audience sources (AUD 1) for this gig. However, you'll hear that Dive and Spank Thru are in soundboard quality. This is because in 2024, an unfished live album called Verse Chorus Verse (I believe Donkey Show was another name?) was leaked which was an early version of From The Muddy Banks Of The Whishkah. Those songs are featured on Verse Chorus Verse. Muddy Banks is SBD1A, Verse Chorus Verse is SBD1B.

A great gig to end 1989, especially after a very difficult tour.

Setlist:
Intro: 0:00
School: 1:20
Jam: 3:56
I Wanna Be Your Dog (Stooges Jam): 6:25
Jam: 8:52
Scoff: 9:34
Love Buzz (Shocking Blue Cover): 13:56
Floyd The Barber: 17:20
Dive: 20:02
Big Cheese: 24:01
Polly: 27:43
Spank Thru: 30:17
About A Girl: 33:22
Breed: 36:01
Molly's Lips (The Vaselines Cover): 39:37
Sappy: 42:00
Negative Creep: 44:48
Blew: 47:25
Outro: 50:35

#nirvana #nirvanalive #kurtcobain