Deer Tick to Revive Deervana for ‘MTV Unplugged’ New Year’s Eve Show
Poster by Jon Appel
Deer Tick have officially announced plans to ring in 2025 with a Dec. 31 hometown performance at Providence, R.I.’s Fete Music Hall. To amplify anticipation for its “Drop the Ball” New Year’s Eve celebration, the 20-year indie Americana outfit has revealed that this show will mark the long-awaited return of Deervana, the quartet’s massively acclaimed and sorely missed Nirvana cover project. For the first formal Deervana staging in a decade, Deer Tick will cover the legendary grunge act’s beloved MTV Unplugged in New York live album in its entirety, alongside a proper set of its ow originals.
Deer Tick made waves with its first Deervana staging at 2011’s South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, then brought the thrills on to further high-profile presentations that year at Manchester, Tenn.’s Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival and Brooklyn, N.Y.’s dearly departed Northside Festival. After a grand finale at Brooklyn Bowl, the lifelong devotees and uncanny impersonators of Nirvana decided to retire the Deervana moniker, only to return to the venue in 2013 for a one-off revival show to celebrate the 20th anniversary of 1994’s In Utero.
In the decade since, the cover project has not been forgotten. Demand for a third act was stoked in 2018 when Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear tapped frontman John McCauley to lend his best Kurt Cobain impression to “Serve the Servants,” “Scentless Apprentice” and “In Bloom” at Cal Jam ‘18. During Deer Tick’s 2023 Halloween show in Seattle, the band served up long-dormant treatments of “Serve the Servants” and “All Apologies” with such a tight performance that fans began to speculate about a revival. Finally, on New Year’s Eve, those dreams will come true.
Outside of its Deervana full-album cover of MTV Unplugged–which famously closes with a ripping run of Lead Belly’s “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”–Deer Tick will also perform a full set of originals. The band has not yet determined the order of these sets, so it’s encouraging fans to “get there early and stay late!”
Presale for “Deer Tick Drop the Ball!” is open now with code UNPLUGGED. General on sale will begin tomorrow, Nov. 1 at 10 a.m. ET. For tickets and more information, visit deertickmusic.com/tour
Watch Deervana perform “Serve the Servants” below.
