Twenty years ago today, first-time director Samuel Bayer gathered several dozen fans and three young musicians on a Culver City, Calif., soundstage to film the video for Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit,’ a soon-to-be iconic clip — the infamous high school pep rally from hell — that ultimately would be as era-defining as the song itself.

Twenty years ago tonight, Nirvana took the stage at the OK Hotel in Seattle, Wash., and played ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ in concert for the first time — debuting a song that would, in just a few months time, alter the course of popular music and drag much of the ’80s indie underground into the mainstream.