Paul McCartney is raving about the Nirvana reunion that joined him Friday night at his Out There tour stop in Seattle.
"They're powerful, you know," McCartney tells Rolling Stone. "It's a great power to have them on stage with you. I mean, my band's great – but when you augment it with Nirvana, that's greater."
Nirvana’s Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear teamed up with McCartney at Safeco Field to perform an encore set of songs that included their original collaboration, “Cut Me Some Slack” (from the Sound City soundtrack), along with Beatles gems “Get Back”, “Long Tall Sally”, “Helter Skelter” and show closer, the “Golden Slumbers” medley.
"We hatched that plan a couple of weeks ago," McCartney tells Rolling Stone. "Dave was going to come up to Seattle with his family, and I said to him, 'Do you think there's any chance the guys would fancy [a reunion]?' He said, 'Well, let me ask.' And they fancied it. So we thought, 'Let's go and flip 'em out.'"
McCartney says they didn't need to rehearse for the big moment, aside from a quick test run during Friday afternoon's soundcheck. "When you're playing with guys like that, you realize that they've been to the heights of fame, so they're used to it – they're not gonna freak," he says. "And they're hell of musicians, so we learned everything really quickly. That's what's great about playing with guys like that."
Friday’s appearance marked only the second time the Nirvana members have performed together in Seattle since Kurt Cobain's death in 1994, and the first time they've played there in more than 15 years.
Watch Nirvana perform Beatles classics with McCartney in Seattle here.
See also:
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