For music fans of a certain age, MTV Unplugged was one of the most unmissable music-related series on television.
Back when MTV used to show music-related programmes, the likes of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and even pop acts like George Michael and Mariah Carey performed stripped-back concerts of their songs to huge success.
Then show first aired in 1989 and ran until 1999 and has been revived periodically over the years - but now it's set to be rebooted for a full series, the first of which will air in the States on September 8th, report Variety.
The act bestowed with the honour is teen singer Shawn Mendes, said that it was watching Pearl Jam's 1992 Unplugged performance that convinced him (even thought it was 6 years before he was born).
"It wasn’t so much about the commercial, showman side of it; it was really about the music,” he said. "“We’ve been working our asses off just trying to figure out the most beautiful way to play these songs in a smaller, stripped-down way that still feels as impactful. I feel like if I can do this right, then it will be a moment for me — where people can really understand and see me as a musician and a singer, and where I’m coming from.”
Mendes's episode will be filmed at the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles, while an executive from MTV explained that each episode will be filmed in a different location - "like where the artist played their first major show, or maybe they choose a location to make a pro-social statement, or it’s, ‘I always wanted to play Carnegie Hall.'”
Unplugged is the latest in MTV's plot to revive their music-based shows; TRL is also getting a reboot in the coming months.
