Recalling the visit of Nirvana and Kurt Cobain to Cork and Dublin.
In 1991 American rock band Nirvana supported Sonic Youth on a mini Irish tour, just weeks before the release of their second studio album ‘Nevermind’. The tour started with a midweek gig at Sir Henry’s in Cork.
Like the GPO during the Easter Rising, many people claim to have been at the Nirvana/Sonic Youth gig but very few were there in reality.
Former manager of Sir Henry's Seán O'Neill says the concert was not sold out, and he recalls about 14 people watched Nirvana's support slot from the start.
Jim O'Mahony who ran Comet Records on Washington Street in Cork was more interested in seeing Sonic Youth, but watched about 10 minutes of Nirvana’s set before retiring to the bar.
Three months later they were the biggest band on the planet.
The following day Sonic Youth and Nirvana played at the Top Hat in Dún Laoghaire. Journalist and broadcaster Sinéad Gleeson says.
I remember thinking on the night that they were better than the headline act, they blew Sonic Youth off the stage to me.
A lot of the fans who got into Nirvana at the time of their first album ‘Bleach' had started to disown the band by the time Kurt Cobain died on 5 April 1994.
Cobain’s body was discovered in his Seattle home on 8 April 1994. He died from a self-inflicted shotgun wound to his head and a suicide note was found near his body. A sold out concert in the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) scheduled for this date had already been cancelled. Brian Ó hÉideáin never sought a refund for the cancelled show and still treasures his ticket.
It represents not just an unused concert ticket, but a moment in time.
Two weeks after Cobain's death Brian Ó hÉideáin gathered with other fans for a vigil in memory of Kurt Cobain at the Wellington Monument in the Phoenix Park.
It was only then that you were able to kinda realise what it meant to have lost someone like Kurt Cobain.
This episode of 'Today With Seán O'Rourke' was broadcast on 7 April 2014. The reporter is Brian O'Connell.
