Lorde, Who Wasn’t Even A Zygote When Nirvana Was A Thing, Paid Tribute To Nirvana Last Night

Last night at the Barclays Centre – a venue that will always sound to me like a snooty prep-school from an 80s teen movie – Nirvana was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after finally meeting the 25-year waiting period (brb need to pack my bags for the nursing home, because that made me feel OLD). After being inducted by ageless Georia peach Michael Stipe, several artists joined Nirvana on stage to perform a medley of their songs, including Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth (makes sense), Joan Jett (I’m with you), St. Vincent (she’s good at guitar, so okay), and Lorde (wait just a goddamn Teen Spirit second).

Lorde was negative-3 years old when In Utero was released, so it makes about as much sense to let her sing “All Apologies” with Nirvana as it would to call Sophia Grace and Rosie up on stage and hand them a mic. But maybe it wasn’t so much about singing as it was about having someone who can visually represent the 90s, and nobody’s doing a better job of dry humping the 90s than Lorde. For her performance, Lorde started with her usual Rayanne Graff drag and added one of Paula Poundstone’s old pantsuits (that also kind of looked suspiciously like the pyjamas from TLC’s “Creep” video), Rebecca Gayheart’s Noxzema Girl hair, and wrapped it all up in the stage presence of that Stone Temple Pilots-obsessed kid in your grade school talent show doing his best Scott Weiland impression.

Basically, it was almost perfect: all that was missing was Lorde using the end of her pacifier necklace to crack open a can of Crystal Pepsi, and taking a break mid-set to ask the audience what they thought of Bill Clinton and last night’s episode of The Larry Sanders Show.