Mike Inez was trolling the newly shorn members of Metallica, who were sitting right up front, with a message scrawled on the front of his bass: “FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS GET FRIENDS HAIRCUTS…”. Songwriter and guitarist Jerry Cantrell had eaten a bad hot dog and was barely staving off the effects of food poisoning (if you’re watching the show, you can spot a trash can next to him). By all accounts, Staley was high but just high enough so that he wasn’t actively in withdrawal and could function in public. Combining the long break with the band’s numerous personal obstacles during the actual show was a major risk, and the night could’ve easily gone south. MTV had been after Alice in Chains to do an Unplugged taping for some time, and they finally agreed, rehearsing first in Seattle and then New York. (This would be the group’s last studio release to feature Staley in a 2018 interview, Cantrell called it “the sound of a band falling apart”.) They did not tour in support of the album. Due to his heroin addiction, Staley would frequently miss sessions, and the band, who had drifted apart, wrote much of the material in the studio, stretching the recording time to four months. The recording of their previous album-Alice in Chains, released in November 1995-was painful and prolonged. Before Unplugged, Alice in Chains had indeed been offstage for about two and a half years. Unofficial import on colored vinyl - Alice in Chains’ MTV Unplugged is an essential grunge album and a career-high point for the band.
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