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Kurt Cobain Honors River Phoenix at Nirvana’s Last Los Angeles Gig

Nirvana Live Video Forum Los Angeles River Phoenix

Above, you can watch 15 minutes of Nirvana’s final Los Angeles concert. Filmed from The Forum’s stage on December 30, 1993, by documentarian Dave Markey, the footage begins with the grunge gods’ version of the Vaselines’ “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam” — “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam,” which Kurt Cobain dedicated to the recently departed River Phoenix. Cobain, of course, passed away a mere four months later, but seen here he is a master of his art — full of fire as he covers David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World,” and plays In Utero‘s “All Apologies.” Before the clip end, we get a snippet of “On a Plain”

Markey shot and directed 1991: The Year Punk Broke, following the Sonic Youth tour of that year and spending time on the road with Nirvana as well. Uploading the unearthed video to YouTube, he wrote, “I stood on Kurt’s side of the stage at my hometown’s Los Angeles Forum and captured the last set I would see of this band. A band that I had worked with, toured with; people that I would call my friends. A band that both the world and myself really loved (can’t really say this has happened since.) Within just a few short months it would sadly all be over.”

Washington town Hoquiam recently declared April 20 Nirvana Day — that’s the date that Cobain’s band will at last be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.