On a quiet Sunday afternoon in December 1991, two of rock’s most iconic figures were standing outside a bar in Edinburgh waiting for their cue to go on. Kurt Cobain and Dave Grohl smoked cigarettes, complained about the cold, and were ignored by the majority of people passing-by on South Clerk Street. Nirvana had agreed to appear at a benefit gig for Sick Kids at the Southern Bar after being asked by Edinburgh band the Joyriders. Nirvana had played the capital two nights previous and now two-thirds of the band were making a return engagement under the billing “very special guests.”
A rumor Nirvana were to play this charity gig brought in some wide-eyed fans, but most left after one of the Joyriders announced over the mic that they were not coming. A few fortunate fans stayed on alongside a scrum of regulars. Twenty-minutes later, Cobain and Grohl finished their smokes and made their way inside.
Nirvana at the Southern Bar. Photo Mary Boon. Via.
This was Scotland 1991, where it seemed to most Scots nothing culturally important ever happened here. The country was still on a desperate high that wee Paul McCartney had a farm down in Campbelltown and, you know, had once written a #1 song called “Mull of Kintyre.” Jings. While over on the west coast, or Glasgow to you and me, there was still long tedious reminisces about that day Elvis Presley set foot on Scottish soil at Prestwick Airport while he waited for a connecting flight back to the States. All the important things in Scotland moved to London or like AC/DC emigrated to Australia. It would take Irvine Welsh in his book Trainspotting and then John Hodge in the film adaptation to articulate why it was “shite to be Scottish”:
Fuckin failures in a country ay failures. It’s nae good blamin it oan the English fir colonising us. Ah don’t hate the English. They’re just wankers. We are colonised by wankers. We can’t even pick a decent, vibrant, healthy culture to be colonised by. No. We’re ruled by effete arseholes. What does that make us? The lowest of the fuckin low, tha’s what, the scum of the earth. The most wretched, servile, miserable, pathetic trash that was ever shat intae creation. Ah don’t hate the English. They just git oan wi the shite thuv goat. Ah hate the Scots.
That’s one way of looking at it. Maybe not the right one, but it was one that was prevalent at the time. Self-loathing is a gift from the Stork when many Scots are born. With hindsight the appearance of Cobain and Grohl gigging in a wee pub on the southside of Edinburgh was like Jesus taking charge of refreshments at a wedding.
Making their entrance to shouts of “Ya hippie bastards,” Cobain and Grohl perched on two bar stools and played three songs: “Dumb,” “Polly,” and “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam.” Krist Novoselic didn’t perform though was rumoured to be in attendance.
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
FOOD FIGHT! Nirvana gets thrown out of their record release party on Friday the 13th, 1991
Incredible early Nirvana gig at a tiny East Coast goth club, 1990
‘(This is Known as) The Blues Scale’: Outtakes from the Sonic Youth / Nirvana ’91 European Tour