Last tv appearance of Nirvana, guests in the fourth episode of the legendary Tunnel program (aired on February 27, 1994).
The program Tunnel owes its name to the months of darkness that accompanied the period of the Revolution between the First and Second Italian Republic; revolution that (today we know) would have bring to power Silvio Berlusconi. Hence the expression: "if you see a light at the end of the tunnel, it is a train".
Mr. Ricci, who appears at the beginning and is portrayed by the actor Antonello Fassari, embodies all the worst that can happen to you in your home when you just want to mind your own business: he is the average neighbor, the right-thinking person wrapped in a phobia of diseases and foreigners, the one who thinks that young people and musicians are all drug addicts (and they'll stick AIDS on your clothes). You would like to press eject and throw him out of the house, but you can't, so you tolerate him: he's the average viewer, he's holding the remote, he decides what's on and what's not. In practice, he embodies the absolute evil, which already dominated then, and would have triumphed later.
Serena Dandini, the presenter, is the lady who just managed to realize her dream: hosting Nirvana in RAI. She does not even remotely suspect that that will be the last television appearance of Nirvana IN ABSOLUTE IN THE WORLD: for her, the mere fact of having them in the studio in RAI, is a dream coming true! Challenging the discontented people! And Mr. Ricci.

At 1:05, Nirvana perform "Serve the Servants", a song imbued with a pessimism that I considered exaggerated, at the time, but today I fully agree with it! All this was happening in an Italy where practically no one understood English, so people at Nirvana concerts sang random letters: this too is love.

At the end, at 4:40, an old acquaintance appears: Lorenzo, played by the great Corrado Guzzanti! In the previous program (Avanzi), Lorenzo embodied the commonplace of youth: a catastrophe on the high school benches and a great passion for music (he was mainly a fan of Iron Maiden and Nirvana, but in the end he was fine with everything, as long as it was rock). Tonight, with Nirvana present live in the studio, Lorenzo could NOT miss it! We all hoped a bit that Nirvana would bury him with blows (but always with the utmost irony!) and instead nothing! Too bad!

Finally, I take this opportunity to greet those commentators of the year 2020 who, thus, out of nowhere, took the parody of Mr. Ricci for a serious affront, writing indignantly: "PEOPLE IN RAI SAID THAT NIRVANA ARE DRUGGED? SHAME!!1 ". All them are strictly Italian (no language barrier!). Many people, in the 90s, saw a negative model in rock (and in videogames, in cartoons, in science fiction and, in general, in the best that culture of that time could give). Certainly, those who had made false papers to have Nirvana in the studio did not think so!!! Programs like Avanzi, Tunnel or the Pippo Chennedy Show were some of the best programs ever aired on Rai, certainly more than we deserved! The 2020 haters are the confirmation of all this! Luckily Kurt Cobain, from up there, sees them and despises them. Very, very much!
For everyone else: if you want to know more about that day with Nirvana, you can find background and curiosity in the autobiographical books of Corrado Guzzanti, which I recommend!

Recorded on vhs and digitized by myself on February 27, 1994, for the real rock audience.
As always, you can download the mp4 source from marok.org for free!

#Nirvana, #Nirvanalive, #kurtcobain