Nirvana: Live! Tonight! Sold Out!!

“Come As You Are,” Nirvana's popular song off their 1991 smash breakthrough album Nevermind, is a fitting description for the band itself in this 1994 performance/profile piece completed by surviving band members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic shortly after lead singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain's suicide. Nirvana, who put the Seattle grunge scene on the national music map, were not about costumes, choreography, or stage pyrotechnics; Cobain routinely wore raggedy jeans, t-shirt, and sneakers—unless, of course, he was wearing a dress and falsies, which is how he appears in the opening cut here “Aneurysm,” a song written after 1989's debut full-length album Bleach. Interweaving interview clips, MTV news segments, and concert footage (from gigs in Seattle, San Paulo, Amsterdam, London, and Tokyo, among other places), as well as a memorable appearance on The Jonathan Ross Show (in which the band performs “Territorial Pissings” rather than the scheduled “Lithium”), Nirvana: Live! Tonight! Sold Out!! is, by turns, exhilarating, exhausting, funny, and sad (you can hear the boredom in Cobain's voice as he sings near-parody versions of “Come As You Are” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit”). Although not entirely satisfying as a music DVD, due to the constant interruptions and the fact that some of the songs are truncated, this portrait of one of the most influential bands in modern rock history nevertheless captures Nirvana performing some of their best songs, including “Polly,” “About a Girl,” “Drain You,” and “On a Plain” in room-shaking Dolby Digital 5.1 and stereo. DVD extras include approximately five more minutes of footage than the original VHS release, as well as five bonus songs from a 1991 Amsterdam concert. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (R. Pitman)