“No Excuses” doesn’t get much better than it does here-Kinney’s drumming is a highlight, and Staley’s vocals are more powerful than they had any right to be. For many fans, the live, unplugged versions of these songs are the definitive ones. The band even debuted a new song, “Killer Is Me”.
Alice in Chains’ material was all their own (save for Starr and Kinney playing “Enter Sandman” in jest at one point), and they included huge hits as well as fan favorites.įour songs from Dirt made the cut: “Down in a Hole”, “Angry Chair”, “Rooster”, and “Would?” The audience finally got to hear some Alice in Chains material in “Sludge Factory”, “Heaven Beside You”, “Frogs”, and “Over Now”. Nirvana’s entry is widely and correctly acclaimed, but they stayed true to their mostly-anti-mainstream-media stance, and nearly half of their set is covers and B-sides. Pound for pound, Alice in Chains’ session might come out on top. Three of the Big Four grunge bands appeared on Unplugged (only Soundgarden opted out), and each of their performances is among the series’ best: Pearl Jam recorded theirs in March of 1992, and Nirvana’s aired in December of 1993. If you didn’t know any better, you would think nothing was wrong. The audience rewards them with cheers, whistles, and applause.
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Staley and the band-Cantrell, Inez, and Kinney, plus Scott Olson, the rhythm guitarist for the evening-deliver one stellar song after another. The stripped-down format allows the songwriting and musicianship to take center stage, as it did on their largely acoustic EPs Sap, from 1992, and Jar of Flies. The intimate venue shines a light on the reunited group’s dynamic, camaraderie, and sense of humor.
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Everything that makes Alice in Chains stand out is on full display. The album was initially deemed middling by critics, which is baffling because it’s nearly flawless. It couldn’t be clearer that they mirror his life at that moment, but frankly, it’s good to hear him at all. The lyrics are raw, dark, and honest, trademark Alice in Chains: “We chase misprinted lines / We face the path of time / And yet I fight, yet I fight / This battle all alone / No one to cry to / And no place to call home.” It’s both a bummer and a relief to hear Staley, their writer, deliver them. Sean Kinney’s drums lock in right before Staley begins to sing as if no time has passed and they’ve been doing exactly this for the past three years. Inez joins in with impeccable electro-acoustic basswork. Opening with “Nutshell”, from the 1994 EP Jar of Flies, Cantrell manages to strum the first chords (and all further chords) without throwing up. They blow everyone’s expectations out of the water.
Starting with the first song, though, Alice in Chains don’t merely squeak out a show. Studio execs would be forgiven for being more than a little concerned. Mike Inez was trolling the newly shorn members of Metallica, who were sitting right up front, with a message scrawled on the front of his bass: “FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS GET FRIENDS HAIRCUTS…”. Songwriter and guitarist Jerry Cantrell had eaten a bad hot dog and was barely staving off the effects of food poisoning (if you’re watching the show, you can spot a trash can next to him). By all accounts, Staley was high but just high enough so that he wasn’t actively in withdrawal and could function in public. Combining the long break with the band’s numerous personal obstacles during the actual show was a major risk, and the night could’ve easily gone south. MTV had been after Alice in Chains to do an Unplugged taping for some time, and they finally agreed, rehearsing first in Seattle and then New York. (This would be the group’s last studio release to feature Staley in a 2018 interview, Cantrell called it “the sound of a band falling apart”.) They did not tour in support of the album. Due to his heroin addiction, Staley would frequently miss sessions, and the band, who had drifted apart, wrote much of the material in the studio, stretching the recording time to four months. The recording of their previous album- Alice in Chains, released in November 1995-was painful and prolonged. It’s the only one we’ve done in three years.” Staley laughs and says, “Well, it’s still the best.”īefore Unplugged, Alice in Chains had indeed been offstage for about two and a half years. One of Staley’s bandmates, it’s unclear who-responds, “Layne, it’s…the only one. MTV aired the show on 28 May, and the live album version was released by Columbia Records on 30 July, eventually going platinum in the US.
“I would have to say that this is the best show we’ve done in three years,” Alice in Chains’ Layne Staley announces during the band’s MTV Unplugged performance, recorded on 10 April 1996, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Majestic Theatre in New York.
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