Rating: NNN
There will never be any question about the sheer brilliance and quality of Nirvana’s unplugged show. And after 15 years (!), Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic’s acoustic reinventions remain as haunting and tense as you’d expect — maybe even more so now.
That’s reason enough to justify making the DVD release something unique. Unfortunately, while fans might expect a swank package with a wealth of bonus material and maybe a word or two in the liner notes from Grohl, the sparse, thrown-together extras leave much to be desired.
At best, you get a shoddy MTV-produced feature oozing questionable over-sentimentality (yeah, we know how special the night was — we don’t need to hear it 50 times) from less than revelatory audience members, as well as an occasionally interesting collection of rehearsal footage.
Although the whole thing has been nicely mixed in 5.1 surround sound, and four more songs have been included that didn’t appear on the video cassette release (they’ve always been on the CD), there’s nothing here that’s gonna blow fans away. And while it would be a treat for younger ones who have never seen the whole show, this looks, sadly, like another holiday cash grab.
