Kurt Cobain: spokesman for a generation. Nirvana: flagship band of Generation X. No one flinches when you say it.
In the year Kurt would have turned 50, Perth Symphony Orchestra present Unplugged: Nirvana Reimagined, a unique concert event in collaboration with frontman Justin Burford, a veteran of sold out Nirvana reinterpretations from Melbourne to Perth and fresh from a return tour with End of Fashion. Leading the concert alongside PSO conductor Jessica Gethin, they say no one nails Kurt quite like him, and this is the closest most of us will get to the band everyone wishes they’d seen live.
Taking place at His Majesty’s Theatre on Saturday, October 7, the show’s ambition is outweighed only by the quality of the songs.
This isn’t Nirvana with strings. Prepare to witness a fully-fledged orchestra in bloom, transformed for one night into a raging rock beast. Already regarded as the orchestra that breaks rules for their radical reinterpretations of everything from Beethoven to WA’s best songs at RTRFM and the WA Museum’s A Moment in Time, Unplugged: Nirvana Reimagined will take orchestral sounds to some heavy, heavy places.
Using Nirvana’s legendary MTV Unplugged in New York as inspiration, which took place just five-months before Kurt’s untimely death in 1994, PSO will take songs from throughout Nirvana’s discography and blow them up.
Imagine About a Girl and Where Did You Sleep Last Night backed by a wall of sound big enough to match the angst in the songs. Picture Smells Like Teen Spirit and Lithium pushing the year punk, alternative and grunge broke, 1991, into the stratosphere.
Unplugged: Nirvana Reimagined is set not only to take you back there, it will remind you of music, culture and a generation changing forever.
Unplugged: Nirvana Reimagined featuring PSO and Justin Burford is at His Majesty’s Theatre on Saturday, October 7. Tickets on sale now from ticketek.
