The guitar used by American singer Kurt Cobain during his last concert was sold at auction for more than $1.5 million, the auction house Julien’s Auctions announced on Friday. This left-handed Fender Mustang was the Nirvana frontman’s “favorite” guitar, with which he played on Nirvana’s last tour in 1993-1994, she said in a statement.
With its sky blue patina, the instrument up for auction in Nashville, Tennessee, is intact, unlike many guitars broken on stage by the grunge legend. In May, a black Fender Stratocaster smashed by the singer reached 595,000 at auction at New York’s Hard Rock Cafe.
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After having marked a generation within Nirvana with hits like Smells Like Teen Spirit or Come as You Are, during a career marked by his addiction to heroin and his complex relationship with Courtney Love, Kurt Cobain had committed suicide in April 1994, at age 27.
On Thursday, Julien’s Auctions also sold another Eric Clapton guitar, for nearly $1.3 million. Nicknamed “The Fool,” this Gibson SG is strongly associated with the singer’s time with the band Cream, where he produced one of rock’s most distinctive sounds.
Its personalized decoration, in a psychedelic style, makes the instrument one of the most easily recognizable in rock and a symbol of the “Summer of Love”, the counterculture movement of 1967 which marked a generation.
Eric Clapton, whose riffs on songs like Layla and Sunshine of Your Love earned him a reputation as one of the best guitarists in the world, began using the instrument during the band’s first U.S. tour. Cream.
