At the performance, Nirvana started to perform, and Kurt Cobain played the initial couple chords of the music, "Rape Me", substantially to the horror of MTV execs, just before continuing their frequent general performance of "Lithium". Backstage, in advance of the show, Guns N' Roses vocalist Axl Rose challenged Cobain to a battle after he, his spouse and Hole frontwoman, Courtney Love, and Nirvana bandmates Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl, egged him on. At the conclusion of Nirvana's functionality, when Cobain was trashing the band's products, Dave Grohl ran to the microphone and shouted "Hi, Axl! Where's Axl?" repeatedly. 1997: At the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards, Pat Smear announced that he was leaving Foo Fighters halfway through their overall performance and introduced his substitution, Franz Stahl, who had been a member of the band Scream with Dave Grohl. 1984: At the 1st MTV Video Music Awards in 1984, Madonna carried out her hit "Like a Virgin" sporting a mix bustier/marriage robe, like her trademark "Boy Toy" belt. 1998: At the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards, in the course of the initial broadcast of the demonstrate, a commercial light in the Nine Inch Nails NIN logo on a black display screen while actively playing a mix of songs that started as a solo piano piece and morphed into an electronic/industrial conquer (which would later identified out to be the songs "La Mer" and "Into the Void," which share many melodic elements and can be thought of variations on a topic) and ended with Trent Reznor screaming "Tried to preserve myself, but myself kept slipping absent" and the term "ninetynine" in the trademark NIN reversed-N font.