Detalhes e bastidores do “Mtv Unplugged” do Alice in Chains, printados da página facebúquica The Metal Realm:
“On April 10th, 1996, #AliceinChains resurfaced to perform their first concert in two and a half years for #MTV’s #Unplugged, (a program featuring all-acoustic set lists).
The band was offered to do the segment numerous times prior to the actual taping before finally accepting it.
The show was recorded at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Majestic Theatre and first aired on MTV on May 28th, 1996.
It was Layne Staley’s idea to have big candles decorating the stage to keep it dark and moody, as the band never liked bright lights on stage, so Staley himself bought the candles at Seattle’s Pike Place Market.
The performance was one of Alice in Chains‘ final appearances with vocalist Layne Staley and featured some of the band’s highest charting singles, including “Rooster”, “Down in a Hole”, “Heaven Beside You”, and “Would?”, and introduced a new song, “The Killer Is Me”.
The show also marked Alice in Chains‘ first appearance as a five-piece band, adding second guitarist Scott Olson.
Jerry Cantrell has attested to being fairly ill during the performance as a result of food poisoning from a hot dog consumed several hours before the gig.
Mike Inez’s bass had the phrase “Friends Don’t Let Friends Get Friends Haircuts…” written on it, directed at the members of Metallica who were in the audience and had recently cut their hair short.
Inez and drummer Sean Kinney did pay tribute to Metallica, however, playing the intro to their hit song “Enter Sandman” just before “Sludge Factory”.
Before “Angry Chair,” Jerry Cantrell paid further tribute by playing the intro to “Battery” going into the Hee Haw song, “Gloom, Despair, and Agony on Me”.
This was omitted from the CD but can be found on the VHS and DVD. On the CD version of the MTV Unplugged concert, as Staley says “Okay, that’s it,” at the end of the song, booing can be heard (presumably due to the performance concluding).
Staley responded to the heckler by shouting, “Hey, fuck you, man!” which was greeted by laughter from the audience.
Cantrell said that one of his favorite things from the concert was when Staley said at the end of the show, “I wish I could hug you all, but I’m not gonna”.