'90s hitmakers Collective Soul visit Hayden Homes Amphitheater Wednesday. (Jennifer Troche Walsh)

If you were putting together a tour featuring bands that were inescapable in alt-rock’s early post-Nirvana days in the mid-1990s, you could do worse than headlining it with Collective Soul and Live.

Collective Soul, a guitar-rock band from Georgia, released its first single, “Shine,” in early March of 1994. It was a big hit then, reaching No. 1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart, and it remains a staple of rock radio.

About a month later, Kurt Cobain died.

And then a month after Cobain’s death, Live released its breakthrough single, “Selling the Drama,” which topped Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart. A year later, they released their biggest hit, “Lightning Crashes,” which cemented them as more than a one-hit wonder.

I share this timeline with you because it perfectly encapsulates the arc of alternative music back then: There was the underground, and then there was Nirvana and their peers, and then there were bands that came after Nirvana. Collective Soul and Live came after — right after. And they were everywhere, thanks to songs like “December” and “The World I Know” and “Precious Declaration” (for the former) and “I Alone” and “All Over You” and “Lakini’s Juice” (for the latter).

Three decades later, Cobain’s face can be found on T-shirts worn by middle-schoolers — a good thing, to be clear — and Collective Soul and Live are indeed on tour together, with a stop planned Wednesday, July 9, at Bend’s Hayden Homes Amphitheater.

Collective Soul and Live, with Our Lady Peace and Greylin James Rue: 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 9, $54.50, Hayden Homes Amphitheater, 344 SW Shevlin Hixon Drive, Bend, bendconcerts.com.