Le Summum - Grenoble

----------------------From nirvanaguide.com:---------------------
Set
Radio Friendly Unit Shifter • Drain You • Breed • Serve The Servants • Come As You Are • Smells Like Teen Spirit • Sliver • Dumb • In Bloom • About A Girl • Lithium • Pennyroyal Tea • School • Polly • Very Ape • Lounge Act • Rape Me • Territorial Pissings • Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam • The Man Who Sold The World • All Apologies • On A Plain • Scentless Apprentice • Heart-Shaped Box

Circulating Recordings
analog audience audio
90 min • A- • Sony WM-D3 / Sony ECM-510P
analog audience audio
90 min • B
soundboard audio (incomplete)
5 min • A+
Includes only "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter."
Appears on the official compilation Home Alive.
Three other songs have been broadcast on FM radio, but don't appear to be circulating.

Uncirculated Recordings
professional video

Other Performers
Buzzcocks
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----------------------From livenirvana.com:---------------------
"So Grenoble is our last show in France, who knows when we are coming back. The future is just an abstract concept, we are living in the here and now."

These are the words uttered by Krist shortly before the band plays About A Girl. It is perhaps illuminating that less than halfway through a European tour, for what was after all only band's third record Krist was already questioning when they would return. Indeed history proved this to be the band's last show in France.

The show begins with Radio Friendly Unit Shifter. Interestingly it is the only song that the band considered from this tour for From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkaw. It failed to make the grade, but was later placed on the 1997 compilation Home Alive, which remains at time of asking the last fresh Nirvana material to be released.

The rest of the show I find difficult to write about. There is nothing essentially wrong with it, the playing is competent, Kurt's voice is obviously strained but stands up well, but as I listen to the recording, waiting as I usually do to hear something worth commenting on I find myself in rather an ambivalent mood. Radio Friendly Unit Shifter is good, although the flat recording somewhat limits its effect. Lounge Act is also surprisingly good as is the Rape Me that follows it but nothing I haven't heard done better before.

The band later, as a way of adding fresh flavour to the set the band plays The Man Who Sold The World shortly before All Apologies but after that there is nothing really worthy of note.

The Verdict

Anyone who had heard the recording of Radio Friendly Unit Shifter on the Home Alive compilation would no doubt be eager to hear the bootleg recording of this show. Its excellence would lead them no doubt to expect a stellar show. Upon hearing the full show on the bootleg they would most likely be rather disappointed. This show sadly remains another one that must be judged by an inferior audience recording which although clear, sounds rather flat and makes the performance sound distinctly average.

While some may argue this opinion is coloured by the recording of the show it must be judged as all the others are on what we have to hear. While in an ideal world we would have a soundboard and a PRO shot video of every show the band ever played, the fact is we do not. While it may indeed prove in future should a better recording surface to be a great show, my opinion is that RFUS excluded this show is at best rather average at worst it is a band simply going through the motions.

Review written by Matt Seward 2002
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