(CNN) Terri Wilder recalls the day clearly. It was October 6, 1991, and she was preparing for a graduate degree at the University of Georgia when a friend asked her to see a band called Nirvana play in Atlanta.

"Who the hell is Nirvana?" Wilder asked.

The show was two days before Wilder's 24th birthday and two weeks after the release of "Nevermind," the band's landmark album. She was "mesmerized."

"I remember it was not music I'd heard before," Wilder said, "But you got the sense that this was something special."

Her friend knew the band's manager, and Wilder got to go backstage. She didn't talk to lead singer Kurt Cobain, but "I very clearly remember him sitting on a couch and looking very socially uncomfortable." She recalled a woman trying to flirt with the shy, budding rock star, who seemed unsure of himself.

Terri Wilder in the 1990s. "I kind of miss that era," she says.

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