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On Tuesday, December 10, 1991, pop veterans George Michael and Elton John were at number one with Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.

Nine places below, at number 10, a group of scruffy Seattle blokes called Nirvana were making their name with a tune called Smells Like Teen Spirit.

That night in Newport , 8,000 miles away from Seattle, another group of dishevelled rockers were getting ready to play in a club called TJ’s. They were called Hole.

Their singer, a woman named Courtney Love, could scream like a banshee. She brought her boyfriend along.

In a moment of punk rock romance he is said to have proposed to her. The couple went on to become two of the most famous people on the planet.

He was Kurt Cobain. And that night has become the stuff of legend.

'I said "Mate, you have to pay to get in". He pulled his fringe to one side and I was like "Oh, s***"'

(Image: Therapy? Archive)

Simon Phillips, of promoters Cheap Sweaty Fun, helped organise the gig. Tickets were £4, or £4.50 on the door.

“There is quite a lot of shakily accurate stuff out there about that night,” the 63-year-old said.

“It was a Hole tour and Therapy? and Daisy Chainsaw were supporting. That night was completely the wrong way around. Daisy Chainsaw were amazing and should have headlined. Therapy? were really good as usual.

“Hole, as a musical outfit, I thought were all right but they left me mildly disappointed.”

Simon, a father-of-two and grandfather, said he “didn’t know what to expect from them” but “was not entirely bowled over”.

“The band turned up to soundcheck without Courtney Love, they came in late afternoon. But Courtney Love turned up very late with Kurt.

“They were both with a guy called Russell Warby who was Hole’s booking agent.

“That night they had a car crash on the Old Green Roundabout, just along from TJ’s.

“I remember Russell’s car being put on a low-loader, because it was a write-off. It was an old sky-blue Skoda and it was a right old mess.

“They came from London with Russell and the band came down separately.

“We had a phone call from Russell saying they would be late and then this crash happened. But as they were playing last we just carried on with the show.

“Shortly before they were due to come on stage Russell came in with Courtney, who I had never met, but anyone would have recognised her.”

Ten minutes later “this scruffy guy” sauntered in.

“He had his hair all over his face so I did not recognise him, which I would have done otherwise,” Simon said.

“I told him, ‘It’s £4.50’”

There was little response.

“So I said ‘Mate, it’s £4.50 tonight, you have to pay to get in.’ He pulled his fringe to one side and I was like ‘Oh, s***.’ And in he came.

“The only other contact I had with them was at the end. I shook Kurt’s hand and he said ‘Hey man, cool venue you’ve got here.’

“There were no minders or any of that b*****ks. He was just milling about on his own.”

But Simon is not convinced Kurt proposed to Courtney that night.

(Image: Dave Wakely)

“I think we knew about it before the gig, I think it had been reported in the NME,” he said.

He heard later that TJ’s owner, the late John Sicolo, came up with a way to make extra cash from the night.

“He considered a scheme to cut up the bedsheets that they used into one inch squares and sell them off,” Simon said.

“I heard that from a well-placed source. That was entirely in keeping with John’s outlook on the world and his place in it.”

'One of the crew started shouting at a bloke getting in the way. It was Kurt Cobain'

(Image: Tom Hoad & Therapy 2014)

Andy Cairns (centre, above) and his band Therapy? were touring with Hole at the time.

Andy, now 51, had been looking forward to the night. They had played the venue before. For them TJ’s was as big a deal as playing New York’s CBGB music club.

“We really loved Daisy Chainsaw and Hole, some of my best memories of all time are from that tour,” the singer said.

He had never seen TJ’s as packed as it was that night.

“It was a nightmare to get our stuff through the crowd, but it was all so good natured there,” he said.

“I remember Johnny Sicolo himself being down the front because it looked like people might start spilling on the stage.

“The word went around that Kurt had turned up, none of us had ever met him.”

One of their crew started shouting at a bloke who was getting in the way as kit was being unloaded from the Therapy? van. It was Kurt.

“Cobain was looking at him and mumbling at the floor,” dad-of-two Andy said.

“Michael the bass player asked him if he knew who he was shouting at. He said ‘No’ and Michael told him. He said he still didn’t know him.”

Andy recalled the reaction when people realised Kurt was in the building.

“It wasn’t like, ‘Oh my God, that bloke from Nirvana is here!’” he said. “It was more like, ‘Oh right, that dude from Nirvana is here.’ That night was amazing.”

(Image: From the collection of Dave Wakely) (Image: AP/Mark J.Terrill)

He liked Courtney Love.

“I thought she was great, super-intelligent, really interesting to talk to. You never knew what you would get with her, you never knew which Courtney would turn up.

“I can’t remember there being any drama that day, but that might be because we were so happy to be at TJ’s.

“Afterwards when we walked by Cobain, I gave him the muso nod that you give when you know someone is in a band. You know who they are they know who you are.

“That’s as far as our conversation went. I think Michael spoke to him.

“I remember at the end of the night when people realised who he was he was surrounded by people.

“I heard shortly after he had proposed to her that night. I think about two weeks later, someone from Simon Phillips’ crew had told us that was the night.”

Therapy? bassist Michael McKeegan has discovered video footage of the night on his computer.

“It’s just before our set so it’s all a bit hectic onstage, with mics being pushed around but it does nicely sum up the chaos of TJ’s,” he said.

“I spoke to Kurt briefly after our set. He was actually standing on a pile of our guitar cases so he could get a good view.

“I think I said something really mundane about how hot the gig had been and he agreed.

“He was very smiley but seemed shy and completely unassuming. There were no minders, crew, entourage et cetera.”

'I gave him a fag and a light and asked "Are you here to watch Courtney?"'

(Image: supplied pic)

(Image: supplied pic)

Schoolboy Andrew Curran knew all about Nirvana and Hole when he turned up at TJ’s for Cheap Sweaty Fun number 73.

Now he’s a 44-year-old assistant headteacher in Leicester.

“I gave him a fag and a light,” the history tutor, from Newport, said.

“I had seen Nirvana a week or two before at the Bierkeller in Bristol. That was one of their first ever UK gigs. Midway Still supported them.

“About two weeks later Hole played and a big load of us went down and we were all jumping around to Hole.”

Andrew remembered the moments before he handed the singer a Benson and Hedges.

“I said 'Are you here to watch Courtney?'” he said.

“He didn’t say much but he asked for a cigarette and I gave him one.

“He was very quiet and trying to keep himself to himself. Then I left because I was a bit starstruck.

“I don’t think a lot of people really knew who he was because it was still early days. He was not a megastar.

“No one knew they were going to be as big as they were. Now it would be like seeing John Lennon, but at that time it was just that bloke from Nirvana.”

The following year Nirvana headlined the Reading Festival. Twelve months before they had played a daytime slot. They were between Chapterhouse and Silverfish.

Andrew had no idea whether Kurt really proposed to Courtney that night.

“That might be a bit of folklore, but it sounds good,” he said.

But he has told his pupils many times about the night he met the grunge king.

“If any of the kids ever talk about Nirvana, or wear a Nirvana T-shirt or anything, I make sure they hear the story,” he said.

“They think I’m making it up and tell me I was never cool.”

'I told him his girlfriend was nuts and he said "Yeah, I know" and laughed'

(Image: supplied pic)

Graham Edwards was in the lower sixth at Newport’s St Joseph’s RC High School when he attended the show.

He remembered Kurt watching Hole from the left of the stage.

“He was stood on a bench where the toilets were,” the 42-year-old said.

“There was like a little alcove where he was. There were lots of people talking to him and he was talking to everyone.”

Graham went over for a natter too.

“I told him his girlfriend was nuts and he said ‘Yeah, I know’ and laughed,” the dad-of-two said.

“We were talking about Top of the Pops, because he had just done Smells Like Teen Spirit and he was clearly miming his guitar.

“He had changed the lyrics to ‘Load up on drugs and kill your friends’, which are not the lyrics of the original.”

The actual words are “Load up on guns, bring your friends.”

“I said to him, ‘You looked like you were off your face’,” Graham, who works in the pharmaceutical industry, said.

“He said, ‘No, I don’t do drugs’ with a wry smile.”

(Image: Getty Images/Frank Micelotta/Hulton Archive)

On his lapel he was wearing a badge.

“It said ‘Happy eater’ which I told him I liked,” Graham said.

“He said he had got it from a service station, I think a Little Chef.”

At the end of the night he saw Kurt go upstairs to the flat above TJ’s with someone from Rockaway Records, which Simon Phillips ran in Newport Market.

“After that I remember seeing his silhouette walking off down the street, with his blond straggly hair,” Graham said.

“That’s still in my mind because shortly after that he blew his head off.”

Nevermind had been released on September 24, 1991.

“That night was before they had properly peaked but they were on an upward trajectory,” Graham said.

“I heard the proposal happened behind the fruit machine, but I don’t know whether it is an urban myth.

“It’s amazing if he did. Some people go to the top of a mountain. But no, let’s go behind a fruit machine in Newport. Where it stinks. I like it.”

'I remember Courtney trashing her guitar and standing on it like a surfboard'

In 1991, musician Christopher Rees, who now lives in Llwynypia, Rhondda, was a student at UWIC, now Cardiff Metropolitan University.

He made his way from Cardiff to Newport that night.

“Smells like Teen Spirit had just come out and there were a lot of people in the audience wearing Nirvana T-shirts,” he said.

“I was down the front and getting pushed onto the stage, so I ended up standing on the left hand side of the corner of the stage for the duration of the show.

(Image: Macca Collection)

“It was about as close to the band as you could be without being in the band. I remember John holding people back like a human barrier, clomping people on the head if they got out of order.

“Everyone knew who John was and respected him in terms of keeping things under control.”

Christopher, whose new album The Nashville Songs is out on June 30, said: “It was a raucous gig from my memory. I remember Courtney trashing her guitar and standing on it like a surfboard.

“I remember asking Eric, the guitarist, if they were going to keep it. It was in bits and I don’t think it was any good to them.”

He dubbed it “one of the more legendary gigs in TJ’s”.

“There is all that mythology that goes along with it in terms of the fact that Kurt is said to have proposed to Courtney in a Skoda outside, I don’t know if that was true,” he said.

(Image: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

On February 24, 1992, Kurt and Courtney were married on a cliff overlooking a beach in Waikiki, Hawaii.

On August 18 that year they had a daughter, Frances Bean Cobain.

On April 8, 1994, Kurt was found dead at his Seattle home by electrician Gary Smith. He had a shotgun pointed at his chin.

He was just 27.