Kris Novoselic is my hero!

Came across this one a couple of days ago. It is probably the only "memorable" moment of the MTV Video Music Awards I ever caught live. Watching it again brought back a few memories, and inspired the following observations:

1. I still have a soft spot in my heart for Kurt Cobain. Honestly, I never really got into Nirvana past a certain point. Their music was pretty good, but I never liked it enought to actually buy a CD. Still, I will always be grateful to Kurt and Co. for almost singlehandedly driving the world of Butt Rock into an oblivion of reunion tours and reality television.

2. Kurt wants to be cool by looking like he doesn't want to be cool. With all due respect to the dearly departed, Kurt's half-cocked guitar smashing and amp tip-over at the end of the song is unbelievably lame. Besides being flat out ineffective and 25 years past its time, Cobain himself acts like he doesn't even want to do it. It's as if someone paid him off to be wild on stage and in the heat of the moment he decides, true to his nihilistic nature, to only sort of goes through the motions. Weak, very weak.

3. Dave Grohl's "Hi Axl" taunt is both hilarious and oddly ironic. While Cobain is halfheartedly tipping over a stack amp and Kris Novoselic is staggering around the stage (see item #4), Dave Grohl inexplicablly approaches the front of the stage and starts taunting Axl Rose. Now, besides just being funny, what I find interesting about this move is that it was supposed to be symbolic (I assume) with the young rebel calling out the staid pop icon (think Sex Pistols vs. Pete Townshend and "Who Are You"). But nowadays Grohl heads a mainstream band himself, and would be ripe for the picking should a hot dog young drummer decide to give his medicine back to him. Curious...

4. Novoselic clocks himself: best all-time Nirvana moment. There's really only one reason I'd even bother posting this clip on my blog. Not out of honor to Cobain. Not because of the "Hi Axl" taunt. Not even because it's an example of how the "new rebels" paled in comparison to the "old rebels". Nope, this clip gets a spot of honor simply because at the end of the song bassist Kris Novoselic tosses his guitar to the sky and watches helplessly as it comes down and knocks him out cold. Seeing him stagger around the stage like a dazed boxer was so funny I couldn't even laugh at it. It was too hard to believe. You just sat there staring, wondering, "did he really do that"? "Could he be faking it?"

Nope, it was real. One of the few real moments the MTV VMA's have ever seen.