25 years ago Friday, Seattle's Nirvana played its last show before Kurt Cobain's death

Kurt Cobain performs with Nirvana in Modena, Italy, on Feb. 21, 1994, just days before the band's last show. (Photo by Raffaella Cavalieri/Redferns/Getty Images) Kurt Cobain performs with Nirvana in Modena, Italy, on Feb. 21, 1994, just days before the band's last show. (Photo by Raffaella Cavalieri/Redferns/Getty Images) Photo: Photo By Raffaella Cavalieri/Redferns/Getty Images Photo: Photo By Raffaella Cavalieri/Redferns/Getty Images Image 1 of / 146 Caption Close 25 years ago Friday, Seattle's Nirvana played its last show before Kurt Cobain's death 1 / 146 Back to Gallery

Many would say that at the center of Seattle's grunge explosion in the early 1990s was a band called Nirvana, fronted by an enigmatic young man name Kurt Cobain.

Cobain was, by most accounts, the force that brought the band together starting in the late '80s in Aberdeen, Washington. And Cobain would ultimately be the force that brought the band down after his self-inflicted death not so many years later.

Bass guitarist Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl would go on after Cobain's death -- Grohl has found immense success with his band The Foo Fighters and Novoselic continues to be a staple of the Northwest music scene as well as an outspoken activist -- but Nirvana ended abruptly. There was no replacing Cobain's angst-ridden, emotional songwriting, or his wrenching vocals.

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And it was 25 years ago Friday that audiences heard their last from Nirvana, at least publicly, on March 1, 1994. The band played a 3,050-capacity venue in Munich, Germany called Terminal 1 (Einz in German).

The venue was name aptly: it had been the international terminal of the Munich Airport until the new terminal opened in 1992.

For a band that was at the height of its career, the venue was perhaps a bit small, but Novoselic reportedly joked from the stage: "We're not playing the Munich Enormodome tonight because our careers are on the wane. We're on the way out. Grunge is dead. Nirvana's over. ... Our next record's going to be a hip-hop record!" according to UltimateClassicRock.com.

The show began with a version of the Cars' "My Best Friend's Girl" before going into the band's usual opener on that tour, "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter."

Watch video of the beginning of the band's last show here:

Cobain was suffering from bronchitis and exhausted from the rigors of the European tour, and his voice cracked painfully throughout the set.

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A few songs into the set, as the band began "Come As You Are," the power went out in the venue. It was restored shortly after and Nirvana began the song over. The 80-minute show was the shortest of the tour, and ultimately didn't include "Smells Like Teen Spirit," despite it being printed on set lists reportedly from that night.

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The band closed the show with an encore performance of "Heart-Shaped Box," and then Cobain thanks the obviously enthusiastic crowd.

Listen here:

After that night, the band would cancel the rest of the European tour and two days later Cobain would overdose on Rohypnol in Rome, an episode that was reported as an accidental overdose at the time but has since been espoused as an early suicide attempt.

Little more than a month later, he was found dead in his Seattle home, killed by a self-inflicted shotgun blast and perhaps helped along by a large dose of heroin. He was just 27 years old.

Cobain would have celebrated his 52nd birthday on Feb. 20.