Nirvana reunited on Saturday to headline the Cal Jam festival in San Bernardino, CA, and while fans raved over how great the show was, the Los Angeles Times had some criticism for the Grunge legends.
And yet it was easy to feel squeamish about the circumstances. “In Utero” was basically Cobain’s howl of misery from his unwanted position in the rock-star vortex, and here they’d become high-five fodder at an event built around the conviction that rock will never die.
Ditto “In Bloom,” the third tune McCauley sang (and sang well), in which the narrator looks askance at those singing along to “all our pretty songs.”
Artists don’t get to choose their audiences, or their legacies. But Cobain would almost certainly have cringed had he been able to envision a scene even as well-meaning as this one.
The Los Angeles Times did say they managed to really capture the sound of the original incarnation of the band, but that there were ‘suspicions’ from Kurt Cobain’s grave.
The music was warm and enveloping — a peaceful finish to a night full of happy memories. But the words carried Cobain’s suspicions from the grave as they rang out over Cal Jam.
“I wish I was like you,” Jett sang. “Easily amused.”
