So Kurt, when you fell, you didn't really jump that hard,
you just sort of like lay down into them. What happened to you? KURT:
They immediately just started grabbing for me, trying to rip my flesh off for souvenirs. Oh, I have a piece of Kurt's forearm...frame it...I don't know.
MusicMania: Do you have an arrangement
with your guys on the side of the stage, you know "Come lift me out of it?" It looked like you were sort of playing while they were pulling on you and you were holding onto the guitar.
KURT:
I think it's a reaction of the people who work with us, to try to save me when I do stupid things like that. They're never prepared for it.
Before the show I wasn't like you know I'm going to do that,
you know. I was really for a long time contemplating whether I should do it or not. I just wanted to do it, 'cause it used to be so much fun in clubs...reminiscing about the old days. I used to be able to
jump out in the audience and they would carry me all the way to the back. I used to be able to roll around in the back. And it was really fun.
It was like a celebration. Everybody was like jumping and
throwing up in the air and everything. Like a beach ball in an arena rock concert. But these kids, some of 'em don't understand that, they're not used to that. All they know how to do is to tear people
apart.
MusicMania: When you're playing arenas, obviously it's a lot of people. I want to hear you talk about the difference in the mind of the audience -- like how close you are to them. Can you
see the people...you know, 100 feet away? Do you have a sense of that? Do you feel the energy?
KURT:
Oh yeah, I can feel it, I can sense it. At certain times, when the house lights come on during certain parts of the songs, I can see everyone. I think "Lithium" is a good example because when we break into the distortion part, the lights all come on and I can see everyone jump up and down and I realize it's not only just the front part that I can see, it's the whole audience.
And it's great. There's nothing better than that much of a capacity of people in tune with the band and giving off that much energy, it's just like a little club but 100 times more. Yeah...they always
sing during "Lithium," which is kind of neat.
KRIST: Or if they don't speak English they just go... (hums).
MusicMania: I seem to remember you guys talking about when you get
an audience larger than a certain size you start attracting people that maybe isn't your audience. I remember the bass player from Jane's Addiction was going off that in the audience at Lollapalooza there's
always people he'd never want to play to coming to their shows.
KURT:
I think in the beginning when we were doing all those interviews when "Nevermind" was getting really popular, we were really concerned with the people who wanted to come and see our shows and have a good time. We were afraid we would have these mean type of people who just went to the shows to cause trouble and we didn't want that. We didn't want to have to have security to beat up on people to keep them in line. But since we've had the experience and we've had to play a couple of shows like this and there hasn't been any trouble. We're relieved of that kind of pressure. That's the only concern that we really had but it obviously translated into we hate our audience, which is bulls***.
KRIST:
There's a meeting before every show between our road managers and the security people, and they're saying (for) anybody who gets too violent, you just grab a person, sit him down, and walk him over to the side. We don't want to see any kind of nasty violence. It just escalates. People see that and they get appalled, and we see that and we get appalled. It just drags the whole show down.
