As expected, Nirvana were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame last night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Hall rules state that 25 years must pass since a band’s first release, making the Seattle legends eligible — and worthy on their first try — due to 1989’s Bleach.
While others like KISS and Peter Gabriel were also inducted to the Hall, it was the anticipated live performance by Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl under the Nirvana moniker that had everyone speculating.
With frontman Kurt Cobain dead since 1994, the surviving members of Nirvana turned to four women to handle vocalist duties at the ceremony: Kim Gordon, Joan Jett, Annie Clark a.k.a. St. Vincent, and 17-year-old Lorde, who wasn’t even yet born when Cobain died 20 years ago this past Saturday.
As intrepid NME features editor Laura Snapes put it via Twitter:
Not many other bands would let women of 60, 55, 31 and 17 front as they received their ~biggest honour~. So cool.
— Laura Snapes (@laurasnapes) April 11, 2014
Apparently Courtney Love and Dave Grohl hugged it out after R.E.M.’s Michael Stripe read their induction. Vanyaland contributor Annie Zaleski has the word on Stripe’s speech over on Ultimate Classic Rock.
UPDATE April 11, 8:36 a.m.: Some full-song fan videos are starting to trickle out, as expected…
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Stereogum was on hand to take Instagram videos, which are embedded below. No doubt more, full-song clips will surface over the next few days — why wasn’t this on television?! — but these snippets should hold us over until Friday afternoon. We were pretty excited to hear Lorde sing “All Apologies,” you know…
Joan Jett and Nirvana performing “Smells Like Teen Spirit”…
Kim Gordon and Nirvana performing “Aneurysm”
St. Vincent and Nirvana perform “Lithium”
Lorde and Nirvana performing “All Apologies”
[h/t Pitchfork]