Mark this one down in your list of gigs you wish you saw, because a bunch of lucky music fans just saw the closest we’ll get to a Nirvana reunion at the Foo Fighters’ Seattle show.
Ever since Nirvana broke up in 1994 following the death of Kurt Cobain, fans have been asking whether or not the remaining members will get together to make any more music.
While touring guitarist Pat Smear joined Dave Grohl in the Foo Fighters, there have been a couple of reunions in the past, with Paul McCartney fronting the band in 2012, numerous artists taking over from Cobain in 2014, and Beck taking over on lead vocals in 2016.
Now, we’ve seen the latest of these reunions at the Foo Fighters’ performance in Seattle.
Taking place on Saturday night, the Foo Fighters were scheduled to take to the stage at Safeco Field for a show that fans wouldn’t soon forget. As it so happened, the opening band was none other than Giants In The Trees, which is the group that Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic plays in these days.
Of course, after performing the opening set, Krist Novoselic reunited with Dave Grohl and Pat Smear during the Foo Fighters’ main spot, performing a cover of The Vaselines’ ‘Molly’s Lips’, which Nirvana had covered for their 1992 Australian tour EP.
“This is an old song,” explained Dave Grohl before jumping into the cover. “We haven’t done this song in a long time.”
As it turns out, the last time that Nirvana performed their cover of ‘Molly’s Lips’ was actually in December of 1993, meaning it’s almost been a quarter of a century since Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, and Pat Smear performed this track together.
Of course, this isn’t the first time that Krist Novoselic teamed up with the Foo Fighters for a mini Nirvana reunion, having joined them onstage back in December to play ‘Big Me’.
Of course, if you’re hoping for a full Nirvana reunion, we’ve got bad news for you, though Dave Grohl recently explained that he’s certain we’ll be seeing the full footage from that 2014 reunion that saw Joan Jett, Kim Gordon, St. Vincent, Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis, and Deer Tick’s John McAuley taking over vocal duties.
“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’,” Dave explained. “We loaded some cameras in there and and shot it without knowing what would ever come of it.”
“But it would be a shame for that evening to be only a memory and we’ve got it.”
“It was fucking great. It was cathartic and everybody involved, I think, understood that they were part of something like a dream,” he recalled. “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.”
Check out Nirvana’s cover of ‘Molly’s Lips’:
Foo Fighters @ Seattle, USA 01/09/2018 Setlist
‘All My Life’
‘Learn To Fly’
‘The Pretender’
‘The Sky Is A Neighborhood’
‘Rope’
‘Drum Solo’
‘Sunday Rain’
‘My Hero’
‘These Days’
‘Walk’
‘Another One Bites The Dust/‘Imagine/‘Jump’/‘Blitzkrieg Bop’
‘Molly’s Lips’ (The Vaselines cover) (with Krist Novoselic)
‘Under Pressure’ (Queen cover)
‘Monkey Wrench’
‘Run’
‘Breakout’
‘Dirty Water’
‘Cold Day In The Sun’
‘Best Of You’
Encore:
‘Weenie Beenie’
‘Times Like These’
‘Everlong’
