As the screening of the Kurt Cobain documentary Montage of Heck grows nearer (May 4th) we are seeing more and more details of the singer’s final days coming to light. Most Nirvana fans might tell you that the band’s famous Unplugged set was their final show, but they would be incorrect.

Nirvana actually played for a month following that concert, touring America before heading to Europe. The final concert before Kurt’s demise took place on March 1st, 1994, in an aeroplane hanger in Berlin. The acoustics were not ideal, and Kurt was suffering from a bout of laryngitis and bronchitis, but it was on with the show. Here’s Rolling Stone:

Cameras were rolling for local television on the first few songs, but no video has surfaced from the rest of the night. Here’s audio of “Heart-Shaped Box,” the final song of the night and thus the final song Kurt Cobain ever played in public. It’s painful to hear him struggle to hit the high notes on the “hey wait” part of the chorus and later in the song he gives up and delivers it in a deep voice.

The remaining dates on the European tour were cancelled after this performance as the band realised Kurt was not fit to carry on, and it was only a month later that Cobain took his own life.

[source:rollingstone]