When Nirvana's grunge classic "Nevermind" was released in September 1991, the band's label, DCG Records, arranged a launch party at Re-bar, a small, unpretentious Seattle venue popular with the punk, grunge and LGBTQ+ community. Rather than the informal gathering of friends and fans the band would have preferred, the label transformed it into a corporate networking event filled with executives, industry suits and music critics, decorated with posters and photographs of a famously camera-shy Kurt Cobain.

The band members, Cobain, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, initially played along, signing autographs and making polite conversation despite their discomfort with the staged atmosphere. As the night wore on, their patience wore thin, and the trio eventually rebelled against the sanitised event that so starkly contrasted with the raw, anti-establishment ethos that defined their music and image.