The Roots Hook Up Party Jams, Led Zep Cover at All Points West

The Roots worked extra hard on Saturday at All Points West, turning the moody, apocalyptic songs off their last two albums into monster party jams — "Long Time" was fast and loose, "Criminal" was a funk beast. Catering to the jam-friendly audience, their "You Got Me" was a sprawling epic, complete with a Rogers and Hammerstein interpolation, a one-handed Eddie Hazel-style guitar solo and a brief cover of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" that made everyone go apeshit ... or at least everyone who didn't leave in the mass exodus during the bass solo, all attempting to get good spots for Radiohead, naturally.

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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