A new exhibition of material from Nirvana’s legendary Australian tour reveals it was almost canceled due to Cobain’s poor health.
In a new exhibition of material, curated by Stephen “Pav” Pavlovic, who was a music promoter in the 90s, a plethora of new information came out about Nirvana’s one and only Australian tour. Pav was the one who originally booked Nirvana for the tour, and drove the ban around in his band from venue to venue.
“So I just called up Kurt and Krist and said ‘Hey, my name’s Pav, do you want to come tour here?’” Pavlovic recalls. “They said, we’d love to come, we’re just busy making this record … And as it turns out, that record was Nevermind.”
Pavlovic also spoke on how cathartic it is for him to revisit and catalog this chapter of his life. “I hoarded everything,” he says. “And who would have thought that 30 years later people would want to see it?”
Pav later revealed that the tour was almost cancelled entirely when Cobain’s health was in jeopardy due to addiction and lifestyle problems.
“Kurt was not in a good way physically – he was struggling with his addictions and travelling. He had a lot of health issues, whether they were a result of his drug use or his lifestyle, but he was not well. And it was getting to a point where we were going to have to make a decision about whether to cancel the whole tour.
“I thought, ‘What about if we just cancel this one show, take a couple of days to regroup and I’ll see if I can get you some doctors to try and help you?’ He sort of came back around and we were able to move on. But if we hadn’t cancelled that one show, then I don’t know if we would have made it through the whole [tour].”
Love Live Music?
Get the latest Live Music news, features, updates and giveaways straight to your inbox Learn more
