In the fall of 1993 an audience of 7,500 — UB students, Buffalo residents, and fans from everywhere — gathered at Alumni Arena to watch the biggest band in the world. For many, it would be the first and last time they saw Nirvana. They were just sixteen days into the In Utero tour, the album having debuted at No. 1 less than two months earlier.
I walked into Alumni Arena the other day, taking a trip down the hallways where excited fans were once shoulder to shoulder, waiting to fill into the auditorium and see a mop-haired, cardigan-wearing Kurt Cobain thrash a Fender Mustang as he sung over Dave Grohl’s pounding drums.
I stepped into an open door where people with freshly purchased Nirvana merch once stormed down the steps, rushing as close as they could to the stage wondering if the band looked the same as on MTV. The open floor quickly became standing room only as they stared at the stage adorned with microphones, drums, amplifiers, and the mannequin with angel wings — an iconic image that is synonymous with the band itself.
There were no stage, fans or Nirvana shirts when I walked through the doors. There was only an empty arena and a hoop-less basketball court that waited for squeaking sneakers. In the silence, I wanted to know what it was like to be in that packed audience all those years ago; to have ringing ears from a crowd that sang along to every lyric at the same intensity they cheered for Jim Kelly and the Bills.
To gain insight into what occurred on that long gone Friday night, I turned to the November 8, 1993 copy of The Spectrum. Alicia Wing and Hakeem Oseni II wrote that Nirvana turned Alumni Arena into a “human washing machine” where people of all ages packed together to listen and mosh to the tracks of “Heart-Shaped Box,” and “Come As You Are.”
The stage light blazed purple across Cobain's face, erasing the weariness from his skin and making his blue eyes glow like an arctic tide. It stayed over him and tried its best to drown him in its warm light, as though it spoke all the wisdom it knew. Cobain kept thrashing his guitar and yelling with his strained voice until the concert was over, the light gave up and the audience was left in silence. They would leave the arena with ringing ears and an image of who Cobain was — a man who lived only in memory.
The band is gone. The arena is quiet. But if I listen closely, I still hear Cobain’s final words.
“What else should I be? All apologies.”
The opinions desk can be reached at opinions@ubspectrum.com
