In December 1993, toward the end of the U.S. tour that would sadly be Nirvana’s last, MTV rented out a warehouse in Seattle to film a New Year’s Eve special starring the band. The stunning 17-song performance, titled Live and Loud, is arguably the band’s best professionally recorded concert, and although it has lived on via occasional rebroadcasts (and in untold thousands of home-dubbed, grainy VHS tapes), it was never officially released. But tomorrow, as part of Universal’s 20th-anniversary reissue of the band’s swan-song studio album In Utero, the complete show will finally hit stores, both as a standalone DVD and as part of the “Super Deluxe” edition of the box set.
The DVD also includes a dozen additional tracks, including the director’s cut of “Heart-Shaped Box,” the band’s last TV performances (on shows in France and Italy), and four rehearsals for Live and Loud, including the two that MTV and VH1 have shared today. A run-through of “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter” is below, and above is “Very Ape,” where we get to see Kurt Cobain showing off his not-bad-at-all skills as a drummer.