Bootlegged recording of Nirvana’s only Calgary concert surfaces

A bootlegged tape from legendary grunge band Nirvana's first and only show in Calgary has surfaced 34 years later.

What is believed to be a copy of a bootlegged tape from legendary grunge and punk rock band Nirvana’s first and only Calgary show has surfaced—34 years later.

The rare recording is from March 4, 1991, just months before the Seattle band exploded into the mainstream.

“I think it’s great. It’s one of those legendary stories that everybody in the scene talks about. ‘Were you there? Were you there?’” said Mike Bell, a former music reviewer for the Calgary Herald and Calgary Sun.

“I was there. It was a great show.”

Bell attended the small Calgary concert at the Westward Club—now the location of Hotel Arts downtown—before the band out of Seattle rose to fame.

“They were green. Their merch was a couple of shirts, and they bought a bunch of lighters from an American gas station and then just wrote Nirvana in pen on it. I bought one because I was a sucker. But they were just getting going. I don’t think there was any kind of hint that they were going to be Nirvana-Nirvana,” he said.

Now, a rare copy of a bootlegged tape of the Calgary show is giving a glimpse into Nirvana before they skyrocketed to fame with the release of Nevermind.

Nirvana enthusiast Mike Jenkins heard about the tape and has been searching for it for roughly two years since moving to the city.

His dream became a reality after recently handing out flyers at a Calgary Music Collectors Show, where he met the family of Larry Smith, a Calgary man who owned a local record store called The Attic.

Smith passed away last year, and his daughter gifted Jenkins with the copy of the Nirvana Calgary concert tape.

“I hear the first notes, then they come on stage and Krist (Novoselic), the bassist, says, ‘We’re Nirvana’ and they just start playing,” he said.

“When you’re a music nerd, this is the stuff you want to hear—that raw live show.”

It came with a letter detailing its history and that it was recorded on a Dictaphone by a Jason Pay, who was in the crowd.

“Jay was at the show. He was recording and he said that the band caught him recording and that’s probably why there’s so many cuts between songs,” Jenkins said.

He was told the lead singer, Kurt Cobain, gave Pay permission to keep the recording as long as he didn’t sell it—something Jenkins plans to honour.

“I’m just really happy that hopefully the world gets to hear this now,” he said.

Jenkins is working with the Calgary Cassette Preservation Society to preserve the recording.

“Just the mythical status of the show, to have it documented is really wonderful,” said Arif Ansari with the society.

“We want people to hear it. I know the Nirvana community especially is really excited about this, just because of this window where it was just before they took off.”

Jenkins and Ansari are hoping to bring fans together for a special viewing party and are asking anyone who was there to share their stories and memorabilia to help preserve a small piece of Nirvana’s legacy.

CTV News reached out to Nirvana’s rights holders, Universal Music Group, for comment but hasn’t heard back.