Unseen Nirvana Concert Footage Expected to Sell for $150k at Auction
Previously unseen footage from a 1990 Nirvana concert — filmed for fun by two videographers before the band rose to fame — is being offered at auction, where it is expected to sell for up to $150,000.
The 45-minute-long recording, captured on two original Sony Video8 master tapes using a pair of 8mm film cameras at the show, is being sold in an online auction by Bonhams in Los Angeles.
The performance took place at Iguanas in Tijuana, Mexico, on February 17, 1990 — more than a year before Nirvana achieved mainstream success with the release of Nevermind and the hit single “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
‘Footage That Sat Untouched for Over 35 Years’
The footage was recorded and captured by videographers Peter Tackaberry and Elizabeth Voss, who were both film students at the time.
In 1989, Tackaberry and Voss were immersed in the grunge music scene and attended Nirvana’s record release show for their debut album Bleach at Rhino Records in Los Angeles. They struck up a friendship with Cobain and then drummer Chad Channing, which led to hanging out with the band at several small LA shows that summer and again in early 1990. After asking him directly, Cobain agreed to let Tackaberry and Voss film their concert at Tijuana using a two-camera setup.
Cobain gave Tackaberry access to the stage for close-up shots of the band. On the night, the band played 13 songs, and frontman Cobain dramatically smashed two guitars as well as one of the tapes included in the lot.
“Lizzie [Voss] set up her camera on the mezzanine, which was fortunate because the sound from my camera on stage was distorted and her audio recording from the mezzanine was much better,” Tackaberry recalls. “Kurt let me set up on the stage to capture the energy and spirit of the performance up close.”
“The show was electrifying, as seen in the footage. We feel lucky to have been there and appreciate Kurt and the rest of the band letting us film the show. This original master footage has sat untouched for over 35 years. Until now.”
Original Unpublished Tapes
The concert footage is preserved across several original and transfer formats. At the heart of the lot are two Sony Video8 master tapes containing the raw, uncut material from the show. Each tape was recorded from one of the two cameras covering the performance, marked “Camera A” and “Camera B” in black felt tip. Meanwhile, another tape in the lot, labeled “Nirvana I,” is the actual tape that was in the camera that Kurt Cobain playfully smashed on stage during the concert.
Also included are two Sony MiniDV tapes, which contain digital transfers of the complete raw footage from the original Video8 masters. A portable SSD hard drive is part of the lot as well, holding the full digitized footage from both cameras, a professionally edited version of the concert, an edited version with a security watermark, and a selection of still images taken from the video files. The collection further comes with a U.S. Copyright Office Certificate of Registration for the cinematographic content and the edited concert video.
The footage comes with an original Nirvana tour poster for their show at Raji’s nightclub on February 15, 1990 (two nights before the show at Iguanas), as well as a first original Sub Pop label pressing of Nirvana’s album ‘Bleach’ on white vinyl, limited to 1,000 copies. Bleach was the only Nirvana album released on the Sub Pop label and their only studio album to feature drummer Channing before he was replaced by Dave Grohl.
The unpublished original video footage is expected to bring in between $100,000 and $150,000, and the auction ends on Thursday (September 25) at 12PM PDT.
Image credits: Header photo via Wikimedia Commons/ Public Domain (left) and Bonhams Auctions (right) Depositphotos.
