WHOLE LOTTA LOVE; Cool feminist punk? The notorious Courtney Love plays London
by Jim Arundel
 
 

COURTNEY LOVE thrives on contradiction. Seesawing opinions mess with her mind and dominate her act. Bursting onto the scene with songs like Teenage Whore - which simultaneously relished and despised the title's image - she made Hole's fierce rock represent a blast of female painand neurosis but, mostly, female power. Her subsequent marriage to Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, the King of Grunge, shocked fans. The couple may have been deeply in love but it looked like the ultimate ironic gesture. Hole's last British gig was a women only event, guaranteeing no repetition of the scenes at an earlier show when Courtney was molested by boy hecklers after jumping into the crowd. In the ensuing flood of letters to the music press, a disturbing number noted her scarlet lipstick and torn baby-doll dress and implied that she was asking for it. Courtney's confidence seems strong enough to weather such controversy, feed on it and turn it to her advantage.  Nevertheless she is obsessed with personal grudges, and gossip. This show, at London's Clapham Grand, was peppered with references to music business insiders and relied on Courtney's new celebrity for much of its impact. People are asking if she is still the cool feminist punk or merely the Nineties' Yoko.
 
Courtney's way ahead of them. Yoko Ono is one of her idols. Besides, she likes the wind up. She thanks us for not yelling "Get your tits out", then later demands that we do. The music swings too, the early bile-rich songs from the Pretty On The Inside album are offset by unusual covers like Echo And The Bunnymen's Do It Clean. Between songs she plays a kind of pre-emptive heckling game with bassist Kristen which involves passing the words "virgin", "whore" and "lesbian" to and fro. It's the performance of someone who seems never satisfied, never certain. The danger is, of course, that her audience may tire of watching her play neuro-tennis with herself and opt for a woman with something musical to offer. But Courtney's ready for that one and has some brilliant new material. In the evening's final irony, the most impressive new song is Penny Royal Tea, which she wrote with her husband.