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....

Yeah I’m not a fan of Mr Bungle and I’m sure he probably is a dick but he was so handsome when he was younger

I saw FNM in 1992, and they were amazing. But I think Mike Patton's a dick.

Saw Metallica in 1992 too, just after Hetfield's accident, so he was only singing

Any fans of Janes Addiction?
I never saw them live, but love listening to them now.

I’m not massive on Janes Addiction but saw them on the NINJA tour with Nine Inch Nails in 2009 and they were really good. I bloody love Dave Navarro 💕

Now talking of twats Trent Reznor is a proper knobhead!

Would love to have seen nine inch nails too.
I'm so glad that I didn't read anything/ watch programs about bands- as all I knew was the music.
I don't know who was weird and who wasn't! Blissfully ignorant!

@isabellerossignol

nuggles amazed to see someone mention Therapy. What happened to them? (I saw them just the once).

Therapy? are still recording and touring.

Saw Therapy? live when I was something like 15, the opening band were Manic Street Preachers (with Richey James!). Never heard of them before, they weren't big in France.

Also, remember that it was the era when the film Clerks was released, I was obsessed by that film. The music was so good.

I was into skateboard at this time, and was collecting skate VHS (the 411 series), music was exceptionnal as well. The more unknown and indie it was, the more I liked it. Was such a snob in hindsight!

Oh god, I loved Jane's Addiction so much, really want the vinyl box set that Perry Farrell has coming out. So good live too.
I've also got Gibby Haynes' (Butthole Surfers) book on pre-order, can't wait!
Saw Therapy around 15 times, mainly on the tour with Silverfish and Gallon Drunk, such a good time. I wish gig line-ups were still that good, too many support slots are sold to crappy bands nowadays, although I get headline bands actually want to make money when they tour and that's one way of doing it.
I used to find a lot of music through skate mags/videos too. NOFX come to mind while we're talking of dickheads, Fat Mike is the absolute worst!

Great thread. I was in my early 20s when grunge started. There was a guy in Dublin who got loads of the US bands over for really small gigs just before it all kicked off - there were mini-festivals between pubs - it was a brilliant time. I never saw Nirvana - they supported Sonic Youth at a small gig in 1991 in the Top Hat in Dun Laoghaire and I was sick that night so we didn't go. Our friends were raving about Nirvana afterwards and they then met both bands on the ferry on the way to England to play Reading. By the following year, they wouldn't have been slumming it on the ferry!!

So many people have Babes in Toyland stories - they really got around!. We had one mad night where Kat and Lori came to an after gig party with us. They were squeezed into the passenger seat of our friend's Ford Fiesta, there were 5 people in the back seat and another 3 in the boot. We stopped at their hotel to pick up their rider - a giant bottle of Jack daniels - and were passing it around and swigging from it when we got stopped at a police checkpoint. Kat and Lori were shitting themselves, but the guard shone her torch into the car, clearly decided this was all more trouble that it was worth, and waved us on.

I agree with the general tolerance and lack of sexism of the scene. We were at a NoMeansNo gig in McGonagles and the lead singer stopped the gig when he saw a guy hassling two girls at the edge of the mosh pit. Guys would stand up for girls in general too, there wasn't the objectification of woman that happens nowadays. I loved the androgyny of the clothes - docs, flannel shirts, army surplus, hair either shaved or long (for both sexes!), so easy.

I loved FNM back in the day and I met my husband through our mutual love of the band at indie discos, gigs and clubs in the 90’s we never got the chance to meet the band despite waiting outside the Astoria and Forum back in the day. Sooooo fast forward 10 plus years and on first leg of our honeymoon in San Francisco we were grabbing a coffee in union square, I look to my right and it’s only Mike Patton stood next to me! I was so obviously we HAD to say something and there’s always that fear that they’ll be a dick but I have to say he was a sweetheart and full of genuine good wishes for us.

@rococopops aw such a great story ! The stars aligned for you!
I love janes addiction too... Jane says live is my fave, those steel drums
Need to check out babes in toyland now!

Anyone else love the big grunge bands’ mtv unpluggeds? They’re all on YouTube. The nirvana one is very atmospheric. Alice in chains is quite sad to watch as Layne is clearly so ill (there’s a sick bucket on stage and he has his arms and hands all covered up) but he pulls it off amazingly. Pearl jams is fun, Eddie v sounds and looks amazing. Definitely recommend all 3 if you want to kill a couple of hours down memory lane! Wish mtv still did stuff like that.

Agreed, MTV was amazing in the 90s. Although it's kind of embarrassing to admit another source of new music for me was Beavis and Butthead!! Haha!
I read extensively about Layne's last few years after he died, utterly tragic and haunting. So many demons. Can anyone remember the band Brad? Was a great side project from Jerry Cantrell. Which reminds me, do my fellow Mark Arm obsessives also follow any of his other bands? I still listen to Green River regularly to this day (if you love Mudhoney and Pearl Jam but don't know Green River you need to hear them!) Also enjoy a bit of Monkey Wrench, and The Thrown Ups. I know he's another one that's struggled with drugs over the years but still somehow pretty prolific and such a lovely man.

Well I clearly caned it too much in the 90s too as just went to listen to Brad and it was a Stone Gossard side project, nothing to do with JC!!

@stopgap

I went to Redding in 94 and 95. Saw the Smashing Pumpkins, Hole, Chili Peppers.

Bought all my patchwork pants, combat boots and army surplus stuff at Affleck’s Palace and the Corn Exchange in Manchester, and Quiggins in Liverpool.

I saw probably 200 bands live between 93 and 98. Jamiroquai, Prodigy and the Chili Peppers were standouts.

Prodigy amazing indeed, same Pumpkins, same Manics, Goo Goo Dolls insane, bit later but Linkin Park incredible. Then I discovered trance music, and it's only been the past few years I've started relistening to other genres.

@penguingorl Yeah I only know Brad because I fancy 90s Stone () i prefer his other bands but they’re good, they also have the drummer from malfunkshun who were around at the same time as green river. (What I wouldn’t give to go back to mid 1980s Seattle!!?) The singer of Brad actually died too last year, but of natural causes, another sad loss.

There’s a really good documentary on Mudhoney on amazon prime, it’s free to watch, if anyone’s interested! They all come across very well and there’s a lot of info about Seattle grunge and how the bands were all interlinked. Weirdly the guys in mudhoney all have day jobs and just do the odd tour, despite being pretty seminal!

penguingorl yay another Jacob's Mouse fan! I love love loved them, their music was fab, they were genuinely sweet blokes plus they were extremely easy on the eye - a shirtless singer/drummer and a pair of identical twins on guitar and bass, all three long haired and pretty I mean come on how could you not? I've no idea how they didn't take the world by storm

In 1992, I went to Glastonbury and Reading. Nirvana headlined at Reading but it was pissing down, absolutely torrential, and we were freezing and caked in mud. So my experience of Nirvana was hearing the opening chords of Teen Spirit as we squelched towards the exit lugging sodden tents. ‘oh well, I can see them another time’ I reassured myself.

I went to Seattle to be an au pair in 1992.

I went to Lollapalooza, which involved a ferry trip across Puget Sound to get there. I was alone as it was midweek and my friend couldn’t get the day off. I also had a heavy beastly period. I saw Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Ministry (SO LOUD) and Red Hot Chili Peppers. It was the first time I realised what an amazing song Jeremy was. I’m sure RHCP had crazy stuff on their heads (fire? Light bulbs?) but my memory is quite hazy.

Went to An Evening with Metallica. That went on a bit. 3 hours!

Crap anecdote alert: I had a ticket for Nirvana, but then Courtney was giving birth so it didn’t happen.

I kind of got sacked because I was rubbish at my job, so was sent to another family all the way over in Connecticut.

From there I went to Boston to see Guns n’ Roses (Foxboro stadium). We were late so missed the support bands, but GnR were great! We didn’t know how to get home so ended up sleeping in the stadium offices!

And my favourite, Friday 13th November, Megadeth and Suicidal Tendencies at the Ritz in New York. I was a bit more of a metal head. With only a few songs to go till the end of the evening, an enormous bloke, crowd surfing, landed on me and broke my collarbone. I heard it snap. Stay out of mosh pits, kids!

Managed to get back to our little town and spent the night in Dunkin Donuts before a kind employee gave us a lift back to our houses! Then the dad took me to hospital... aaaaand two days later I was back in the UK.

Sadly I was too late for grunge, but my sister who is 10 years older saw many of the original bands at uni (she was an ents officer). I did go to the pixies first gig in the UK as a reformed band, was so much fun.

The most visually amazing gig I saw was probably Marilyn Manson Leeds 2000 or 2001, the Holywood tour.

I also saw the Posies at a free gig at Gasworks Park. Although, I can’t find any historical evidence of this event online, so I’m wondering if I imagined the whole thing.

I saw Nirvana at Reading 92. Happy days

Yeah, Stone was pretty fit @Chloedancer Ooh, don't remember Malfunkshun so will check them out. How good is prime for music docs?! So many really good ones on there. Got a Bad Brains one saved for next time I'm in front of the TV, really excited as I love them, and another amazing live band. It's so sad that so many of these 'successful' bands never got to quit their day jobs. It's so hard to make a living at music. I used to tour with bands in the90s and 00s and most barely even broke even. We were so lucky that most bands still came here as getting here is bloody expensive compared to just doing the rest of Europe.
Hehe! Yes @nothingcomestonothing Jabobs Mouse were 3 very beautiful men
@ScottIansEyebrows I am so jealous you got to see Ministry! I once came close in the 90s with NIN but it got cancelled. Although I have seen Suicidal Tendencies a bunch of times and love them. Hope your collarbone fully recovered! I've had various injuries at gigs but nothing that bad! Got 2 black eyes once, first from stagediving then 2nd when someone landed on me! Nearly broke my back stagediving at a fear factory gig when every bugger moved out of the way, I was very lucky to leave with just some nasty bruising!
Loving this thread, I work in my spare room and it's been great having lots of new (old! I'm terrible at thinking of things to listen to for some reason!) suggestions for Alexa!

Just read more of the thread...I saw Babes In Toyland in Stoke in 1992 or 93, Jacobs Mouse were the support band.

@penguingorl Andy Wood of mother love bone was the singer in malfunkshun! Quite the incestuous music scene. There’s a good documentary about Mother Love Bone somewhere online, Andy Wood’s is another very sad story. It seems like a lot of the grunge Gen Xers had troubled backgrounds, and there was a big class A drug problem in the northwest (think this is still the case? I saw a Louis Theroux on it a while ago)

I always think stage diving looks so perilous mainly for the people underneath! It’s mad watching some YouTube videos from early 90s of people just getting up on stage while the band is playing and jumping off. When I started going to gigs in the early/mid 00s that wouldn’t happen even in small venues.. health and safety laws presumably!?