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Eric Clapton and Kurt Cobain Guitars Could Fetch Up to $2 Million Each at Auction 

View of Kurt Cobain’s SkyStang I guitar during the media preview for Julien's "Played, Worn & Torn: Rock 'n' Roll Iconic Guitars and Memorabilia" in Gardena, California, on October 10, 2023. (AFP)
View of Kurt Cobain’s SkyStang I guitar during the media preview for Julien's "Played, Worn & Torn: Rock 'n' Roll Iconic Guitars and Memorabilia" in Gardena, California, on October 10, 2023. (AFP)
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Eric Clapton and Kurt Cobain Guitars Could Fetch Up to $2 Million Each at Auction 

View of Kurt Cobain’s SkyStang I guitar during the media preview for Julien's "Played, Worn & Torn: Rock 'n' Roll Iconic Guitars and Memorabilia" in Gardena, California, on October 10, 2023. (AFP)
View of Kurt Cobain’s SkyStang I guitar during the media preview for Julien's "Played, Worn & Torn: Rock 'n' Roll Iconic Guitars and Memorabilia" in Gardena, California, on October 10, 2023. (AFP)

Two iconic guitars played by Eric Clapton and Nirvana's Kurt Cobain could each fetch $1 million to $2 million when they go up for auction in November.

Clapton's "The Fool", a psychedelic painted guitar, was known for its unique sound. The Beatles' George Harrison gave it to Clapton after his guitar was stolen.

"It was the guitar he used to create the very famous woman tone that guitar players today try and recreate 50 years since," said Martin Nolan, founder of Julien's Auctions.

With hits such as "Bell Bottom Blues," "Cocaine" and "Layla," Clapton has won 18 Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000.

The other guitar, also estimated between $1 million and $2 million, is Kurt Cobain's guitar, the "SkyStang I", which Cobain played during his final public performance on Nirvana's "In Utero" concert tour.

Described as his "workhorse" because of the amount he used it during the tour, the guitar still has the same strings and even features black tape covering over the Fender brand name, as "Kurt hated corporate sponsorship and corporate branding," according to Nolan.

The world record for a guitar was set in June 2020 when Cobain's 1959 Martin D-18E guitar that he played for his 1993 appearance on "MTV Unplugged" sold for over $6 million.

Cobain popularized grunge rock in the early 1990s. Nirvana broke through to mainstream pop success with the smash hit "Smells Like Teen Spirit," the first single from the band's second album, "Nevermind," released in 1991.

The auction also features items belonging to Cobain, including his cardigan, jeans, and a pack of cigarettes, all of which he left behind at rehab.

The lead singer of Nirvana was found dead, aged 27, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his Seattle home in April 1994.

A portion of the guitar proceeds will go to Kicking the Stigma, a mental health initiative.

There are over 1,000 items going up for auction at Nashville's Hard Rock Cafe between Nov. 16-18 at the "Played, Worn & Torn: Rock 'n' Roll Iconic Guitars and Memorabilia" event.

Also for sale are Amy Winehouse's bustier from her performance at the Brit Awards, jewelry belonging to Prince and Elvis Presley, and items from the estate of Frank Zappa, including the first guitar he ever bought.

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At Sundance, the Hottest Ticket in Town Was a Rose Byrne and Conan O’Brien Psychological Thriller 

Rose Byrne attends the premiere of "If I Had Legs I'd Kick You" during the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, Jan. 24, 2025, at Library Theatre in Park City, Utah. (AP)
Rose Byrne attends the premiere of "If I Had Legs I'd Kick You" during the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, Jan. 24, 2025, at Library Theatre in Park City, Utah. (AP)
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At Sundance, the Hottest Ticket in Town Was a Rose Byrne and Conan O’Brien Psychological Thriller 

Rose Byrne attends the premiere of "If I Had Legs I'd Kick You" during the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, Jan. 24, 2025, at Library Theatre in Park City, Utah. (AP)
Rose Byrne attends the premiere of "If I Had Legs I'd Kick You" during the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, Jan. 24, 2025, at Library Theatre in Park City, Utah. (AP)

Rose Byrne plays a mother in the midst of a breakdown in the experiential psychological thriller “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.”

Anticipation was high for the A24 film, which will be released sometime this year. Its premiere Friday at the Sundance Film Festival was easily the hottest ticket in town, with even ticketholders unable to get in. Those who did make it into the Library theater were treated to an intense, visceral, inventive story from filmmaker Mary Bronstein that has quickly become one of the festival’s must-sees.

Byrne plays Linda, who is barely hanging on while managing her daughter’s mysterious illness. She’s faced with crisis after crisis, big and small — from the massive, gaping hole in their apartment ceiling that forces them to move to a dingy motel, to an escalating showdown with a parking attendant at a care center. The cracks in her psychological, emotional and physical wellbeing have become too much to bear.

“I’d never seen a movie before where a mother is going through a crisis with a child but our energy is not with the child’s struggle, it’s with the mother’s,” Bronstein said at the premiere. “If you’re a caretaker, you shouldn’t be bothering with yourself at all. It should all be about the person you’re taking care of, right? And that is a particular kind of emotional burnout state that I was really interested in exploring.”

Byrne and Bronstein went deep in the preparation phase, having long discussions about Linda with the goal of making her as real as possible before the quick, 27-day shoot. Byrne said she was obsessed with figuring out who Linda was before the crisis. The film was in part inspired by Bronstein’s experience with her own daughter, but she didn’t want to elaborate on the specifics.

“That’s her story to tell,” Bronstein said.

Part of Linda’s story involves her therapist, played by Conan O’Brien, who joked that he didn’t realize he was in a movie.

“I’m not looking out for movie scripts or anything. But when I got a call from A24 that they wanted me to read something, I’m not stupid,” O’Brien said. “I showed it to my wife, who is one of the smartest people I know, and she read through it and she said, ‘I didn’t know they made movies like this anymore.’”

He was particularly in awe of his director and co-star, saying he felt like a fraud standing beside them.

“It was an amazing experience, one of the best experiences of my life, just to be with them and watch them work,” O’Brien said. “I don’t know how (Byrne) did that and not check into a hospital afterwards, because I haven’t seen any actor, man or woman, sustain that level for an entire movie.”

“I feel like I have to go to a hospital now, because this was the first time I watched it,” he added. “I’m a mess.”

A$AP Rocky also co-stars, as a man Linda meets at the motel, but was not in Park City for the premiere. He is currently on trial, charged with firing a gun at a former friend.

The film is full of ambiguity, metaphor and just plain artistic expression that Bronstein hesitated to explain, from the name itself to the hole in the ceiling, which takes on a somewhat supernatural quality.

“When we have nothing left to give, we have an emptiness inside of us,” Bronstein said. “And that emptiness is actually not empty: It’s filled with all the darkness and self-hate and doubt and fear and dread and regret and everything. ... That to me is what the hole is.”

Some of it, she said, she doesn’t even fully understand. The point is the experience, and critics and Sundance audiences are already fully on board.

Bronstein, a bit of a cult figure in the film world, made her directorial debut in 2008 at the SXSW festival with “Yeast,” which featured a pre-fame Greta Gerwig and was hailed by New Yorker critic Richard Brody as a “mumblecore classic.”

“If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” is only her second feature.

“This is the first time that anybody else has paid for me to make art,” Bronstein said. “I’m proud to say that this is the film that came directly from my head to the screen.”