There was a strange buzz going around school at the start of my last academic year in 1991. It was early September, and musical war stories from the summer were being traded. Some of us told of seeing AC/DC’s thunderous mega-show at Donington racetrack; or of witnessing Guns ‘n’ Roses’ bombastic pyrotechnics at Wembley Stadium.

But those who had been to that year’s Reading Festival spoke with fervent awe, greater than anyone’s, about a band from Seattle who’d played a no-frills set early on the Friday afternoon between indie minnows Silverfish and Chapterhouse. They carried the experience with them like a precious stone as they spread the word. The band was Nirvana. And within weeks they were to release one of the most influential and best-selling albums of all time.