We got a neat little press release today plugging the new Nirvana DVD, Live At Reading. It included the cool video for School, viewable below.
Watching it, I was struck with the unquestionable realization that I’ve seen it before… dozens of times. The press release said that it’s been “recently made available for fans,” but I went over to my DVD rack and sure enough, there was the show, as it was broadcast in 1992, in its entirety. I resisted my urge to scoff (pun unintended), and decided to at least consider the press release’s claim that this new release was a “color-corrected” version with better audio.
Unfortunately, not only does my bootleg version, over ten years old, feature better color, it has the same audio. Clocking in at over 102 minutes, it also includes a bit more than the label-sanctioned version, including a soundcheck. I’m going to have to avoid posting any of it, but it’s out there. And here’s a side-by-side picture comparison:
The official release has a closer crop, and more saturated color (at the expense of some detail), but at least it doesn’t have the ugly timecode stamp. If that’s worth $30 to you, go with God.
On the bright side, the 1992 Reading set was indeed one of the band’s finer (taped and distributed) performances. Whichever way you prefer to acquire it (via official release or black market super geek style), it’s worth the investment of attention.
Cool news!
This show is by far one of my favorites. Fantastic set. I have it on audio and video(black market super geek style, of course) and listen to and watch it frequently. Very interested to see if the “new” version is really any better in quality, but I’m not sure if I want to pay 30 bucks for it. ……..I know I probably will though…..
[...] hit stores on November 3rd. There are some who own bootlegs of the concert (like my boy Skwerl at Antiquiet) but if you want a color-corrected, mastered audio version then look no further than this DVD for [...]
black market super geek style sex is absolutely right
Yeah, please don’t post it. Don’t want you going all William Wallace on us so that I hear you screaming “Freeeeedom!” all the way down the I-5. There really aren’t many but Nirvana’s one of the handful of bands that I wish I could’ve seen.
Nirvana…..Your favorite band’s favorite band
simply the best
pay for either? what is this, the 90s?