Pionic have up a new Oral History of Nirvana’s Crossover Moment article, and it features a hilarious story about Dave Grohl trying to steal beer.
Eric Jeevers said, “I missed the whole equipment-smashing bit, although backstage the security’s porto-phones were buzzing and we heard what was going on. Personally, I don’t get a kick from seeing someone wrecking guitars, so I went to see some other band — and later on ran into Mr. Grohl… Dave tried to nick our six-packs of beer.
He was dead drunk, and we told him to cut it out. Like, ‘If you want a beer, here, you have one, but don’t take a whole six-pack, OK?’ Then he started making masturbation gestures with the beer, and I put a friendly arm around him [and said], ‘Know what, let’s see if there’s any cool bands to check out.’ He agreed, but in the corridor, he slipped over some spilled beer, thought I had pushed him or whatever, and he attacked me. It was pretty easy to dodge his blows and I didn’t feel like hitting him back — I mean, he had trouble standing up as it was! So, anyway, security saw what happened [and were like] ‘Ah, another of those Nirvana guys…’ and they had a little chat I think…”
Rawhead Rex’s Eric Moore told another story, “Krist and Dave were really funny, outgoing, and well… like most of us, drunk. Kurt was very reclusive and surrounded by a coterie of people who had dyed hair and looked smacked-out… We opened for them the day (I think) Nevermind went gold in the U.S. And hanging out backstage with Mudhoney, watching Nirvana at their fucking peak… fucking amazing. I tell people all the time.
That night, Nirvana was the best rock & roll band in the world. The best rock set (and drummer) I’ve ever seen to this day… I wasn’t nervous at all, but with all of the lights and cigarette smoke I couldn’t really see the crowd. Oh yeah, and I made a point of stealing beer from Nirvana’s dressing room. Because no one was downstairs in the dressing rooms, they were all up top watching Nirvana!”
