To ask for your 90s grunge music stories!?

[Chloedancer]

Please indulge me if you're of an age to have seen the 90s grunge bands back in the day! I'm early 30s and deep into a nostalgia-fest about this time I have no memory of (because I was still in nappies...) Have been watching YouTube bootlegs of some insane looking shows including Eddie Vedder jumping all over the place, Layne Staley's insane vocals, Chris Cornell's habitual shirtlessness... it was such a great time for rock music and now they're all in their 50s and I'm sad.
Pearl jam, Soundgarden, mudhoney, nirvana, Alice in chains, sonic youth (I know it's not really grunge), hole, smashing pumpkins, etc... anyone see any of these bands in their 1991-1993 ish heyday? How was it, any gig memories, did you meet them, etc etc....

I saw Nirvana in Edinburgh before they hit the big time. I thought they were shite!

I saw Smashing Pumpkins at the SECC in Glasgow in 1996. I bought a T-shirt which is the album cover of the Mellon Collie and infinite sadness, my 16 year old dd wears it now.

I saw AIC as the opening act on the Clash of the Titans tour (in the US, was Slayer/ Anthrax/ Megadeth iirc, I was more metal than grunge!) and they were awesome. I just saw them again last year, the singer (whose name I forget but I always consider ‘new’ even though he’s been with the band longer than the original) is a perfect replacement and I can’t recommend them enough as a live act.

@Roominmyhouse wow 16 times!!?

@Chloedancer I know it’s a lot! they are my favourite band and have seen them in France and Amsterdam too. Just trying to see them as much as I can while they are still around as I know they won’t be around forever!

Finding it quite hard to get tickets for any of PJ European dates next year (no U.K. ones yet) and I also am worried it’d be anticlimactic because I love them as a young band in their 90s heyday and it’d just be so different! theyre on my bucket list though. Quite tempted to try and get Pinkpop festival tickets when they come out and see RHCP and deftones too! Quite the throwback to my teen music obsessions!!

@cakewench did you see Layne Staley singing the first time you saw AiC? Was he as amazing as everyone said?

My boyfriend at the time & I went Greyhounding around the States after our finals mid-90s with Seattle as the first stop because we were massively into grunge & it was a bit of a pilgrimage for Kurt. I got my degree result over the phone in the youth hostel, & I'd not done well but I didn't care as I was in f-ing Seattle!!

@Chloedancer OMG, another Deftones fan! I used to be obsessed with them when I was younger, still love their old stuff. I had this Deftones hoodie I wore everywhere and it got stolen when my house got burgled, I think the burglar used it to wrap my computer in. I cried my eyes out. I loved that hoodie.

So sad about Chi as well.

@idlevice

My boyfriend at the time & I went Greyhounding around the States after our finals mid-90s with Seattle as the first stop because we were massively into grunge & it was a bit of a pilgrimage for Kurt. I got my degree result over the phone in the youth hostel, & I'd not done well but I didn't care as I was in f-ing Seattle!!

I remember writing a message in the next near the house.It was very civilised when we went there was someone in their sixties in the actual back garden / yard with a leaf blower. Wonder who buys a house where an icon committed suicide in such a fashion?

Did you also go to Aberdeen?
I did at six months pregnant and literally stood “underneath the bridge”
There were more than a few people with substance abuse issues there so we left quickly

@PhilSwagielka
Very sad indeed

The Deftones are a cracking band. The last time I saw them live was Download 2015 and they were excellent.

@Linnet

I saw Smashing Pumpkins at the SECC in Glasgow in 1996. I bought a T-shirt which is the album cover of the Mellon Collie and infinite sadness, my 16 year old dd wears it now.

What a great legacy that t shirt has Linnet b That tour was One of the many times I saw the SP too. Always loved them. I spent half an hour in the middle of the night prising off an enormous Mellon Collie billboard poster in Leamington Spa where I was living as a final year undergraduate. It had pride of place in my bedroom and I brought it home upon graduating much to my parents horror

The artwork from that album was beautiful

We played “Tonight Tonight”’in the car in the way to the hospital the night our first child was born too.

I love how music that we loved in our youth weaves its way in and Out of your life experiences and helps make such powerful memories

@Chloedancer yeah can be tough to get tickets. We are in the ‘ten club’ sober priority access. If you can get tickets Amsterdam is fab, the ziggodome has great sound. PJ are definitely worth still seeing in my opinion.

Also love Deftones and have seen them loads. The best time was at the Roadmender in Northampton in about 2007(?), it was so loud!

I love this thread!

Love so many of these bands but was too young to see them. By the time I could go to gigs music had moved on a little. I went to Distortion festival in 2002 and saw Green Day, Iggy Pop, Hundred Reasons, Idlewild etc. Saw RHCP around 2003ish? Supported by Jared Leto's band! Went to V Festival for the day one year but no idea who we saw...can't have been that good!

I was also a Deftones fan, but Foo Fighters and Incubus were my favourites.

We used to go to Birmingham Academy (before it was the Carling Academy and then the o2 academy) pretty much every weekend to see big bands and smaller ones. A bit sad I cant remember them all and all my ticket stubs are nowhere to be seen. Gig tickets used to be so cheap! We'd run for the last train from Moor St.

Wish my memory was better!!

@stophuggingme that's a great story! Did it come off easily? Which bill board was it? I live very near Leam.

We used to take gig posters at the end of the night, often from the toilets!

I saw sonic youth in 1991, saw the violent femmes a couple of years later but was very drunk and don’t remember most of the gig! Ditto pj Harvey. Also saw red hot chilli peppers when I was 15, small venue, I was wearing a filmy dress over a cat suit and at the end of the gig the dress was gone, destroyed in the mosh pit!
Nirvana toured when I was 16, didn’t come to my town and my folks forbad me from travelling to see them as it was in the middle of exams. Kurt died the next year. It’s been over 20 years and I still resent my ‘rents for making me miss my chance to see them!

Forgot to mention the pixies- I grew up in australasia so not as many chances to see bands as there are in northern hemisphere. Finally saw the pixies two years ago, they turned the venue into a great replica of a 90s gig with loads of dry ice. A real bucket list band for me!

I absolutely loved this era, mostly for grunge but also for shoegaze. I never liked Courtney Love but liked her even less after watching the Patty Schemel (Hole drummer) doc 'Hit So Hard.'
The reading and phoenix fest's were always amazing, one of my best memories was finally seeing Steve Albini at Phoenix, I'd been a huge Big Black fan and it was Shellacs first time in the UK. Was working there and got to meet Mike Patton very briefly, swoon!!
Saw most of the aforementioned bands in my local venues, Fugazi and Babes in Toyland were always fantastic and so were the Lunachicks. Loved L7, just saw their documentary a couple weeks ago which was ace.
Probably my best local gig was seeing Mudhoney for the first time, they played my fav song when I shouted for it then I managed to get backstage, they were so lovely, I talked with Steve and Mark about music for about an hour! Then at kicking out time had a snog with Mark Arm which to this day is still one of the highlights of my life!!!
Nice to see Jacobs Mouse mentioned, such a great band!

Oh, religiously bought the music press each week for recommendations, read fanzines and watched shows like transmission and the one with the French guy?! And the 120 minutes on MTV (been watching old episodes on YouTube recently, lovely blast from the past.)

@penguingorl omg! the snog with Mark arm is up there with the absolute best stories on this thread!!

@grafittiartist Faith No More ARE fabulous live. I was meant to go and see them in Birmingham in June but Covid delayed it to next year. I will have 7 month old then but will figure something out. I've seen them 5 times in since 2009 and they have not missed a beat, Mike Patton is the most amazing vocalist on the planet and I will happily fight anyone that disagrees!

Hehe! Such a long time ago but the thought of that night still gives me so much joy @Chloedancer 💕
Mike Patton is stunning, as a man and vocalist @Pinktruffle It never ceases to amaze me just how prolific he is and yet every single band/project he's done is fantastic.
Chris Cornell was amazing too, such a sad loss. That voice, especially in the early days. I think he did lose the power of it for a bit when he was really caning it but it came back.

I had an awful pretentious boyfriend as a teen who loved FNM so I avoided them but I’m going to take a look thanks to this thread. Mike Pattons voice is amazing from what I’ve heard.
I still can’t really believe Chris Cornell is gone, he was like the alpha male of grunge. So sad.

I have such a thing for Mike Patton. Saw them 3 times in 2009 when the got back together and a couple more since! Had tickets to see them this year but will be next year now. He has a fantastic voice and they are still brilliant live too.

Chris Cornell was a beautiful man with a unique voice. I feel sad I’ll never seen him sing live again but grateful I did get to see him, even if at download in 2009 he played stuff off his awful album scream. I have fond memories of seeing him at the Roundhouse in Camden in 2007.

I like Faith No More's music but Mike Patton himself leaves me cold. All the shitting in a hairdryer stuff and his 'hilarious' side band Mr Bungle with their song about 'the girls of porn' make me see him as a pretty unpleasant individual.