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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Lifestyle
Christopher Weber

The fan who secretly recorded Nirvana’s debut performance in 1989

  • Aadam Jacobs, a dedicated music fan, recorded more than 10,000 live concerts across four decades, beginning in 1984.
  • His extensive collection includes a notable recording of Nirvana's debut Chicago performance in 1989, alongside early shows from bands like R.E.M., The Cure, and The Pixies.
  • A team of volunteers is currently cataloguing, digitising, and uploading Jacobs' analogue recordings to the Internet Archive for public access.
  • The digitisation process involves volunteers like Brian Emerick, who converts the tapes, and others in the UK, US, and Germany who clean up the audio and add metadata.
  • While copyright technically belongs to artists, the non-profit nature of the project means most artists approve, with some, like The Replacements, even incorporating the recordings into official releases.

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