Live and Loud (Nirvana video)

Background

The Pier 48 concert featured Nirvana, American hip hop act Cypress Hill, and American rock band the Breeders. It was pre-recorded for a worldwide New Year's Eve broadcast. The show was originally set to include American grunge band Pearl Jam as the co-headlining act, conceived in part as a reconciliation between Nirvana and Pearl Jam after Nirvana's vocalist and guitarist Kurt Cobain's attacks on the latter in the press. Pearl Jam cancelled their appearance the day of the show, with the official reason being that the band's vocalist, Eddie Vedder, had the flu.

This left Nirvana as the sole headliners, leading to an extended set. Show director Beth McCarthy-Miller recalled that during sound check after Vedder's cancellation, Cobain was helpful and asked if she needed more. MTV had originally planned to film in New York City, but Vedder wanted it in his hometown of Seattle, prompting MTV to find Pier 48, an industrial building on the Puget Sound. MTV employee and friend of the band Amy Finnerty recalled that Pearl Jam's cancellation was no big deal to Cobain, and that he was only concerned that the Breeders would still get to play and were taken care of.

In a 2018 Rolling Stone interview, Cypress Hill's lead rapper B-Real said that Pearl Jam's cancellation bumped Cypress Hill into the co-headline spot to open for Nirvana for an MTV event, which was big for them. With Pearl Jam's cancellation, Nirvana's extended set resembled a typical In Utero tour concert, though it excluded the two quietest set list regulars, 'Polly' and 'Dumb', as well as the band's 1991 breakthrough single, 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'.

The concert featured material from Nevermind and In Utero most prominently, along with three songs from Bleach and the 1990 single 'Sliver'. It included a cover of 'The Man Who Sold the World' by David Bowie, which they occasionally performed during the In Utero tour, including their MTV Unplugged appearance the previous month. The show ended with a rare In Utero-era performance of the Nevermind hidden track, 'Endless, Nameless'.