Courtney Love did not show us her breasts on Monday night. Sure, she hit them with a tambourine, swore like a fishwife, cruelly mocked a young man wearing a Kurt Cobain t-shirt, attempted to save the life of an idiot punter on the lighting rig and, as a grand finale, removed her panties and flung them into the crowd.
But her surgically-enhanced breasts, the stars of many a previous show on this often shaky Australian tour, stayed safely behind her transparent top. It was a significant development. After some of the most dire and pathetic gigs I've ever seen - their Sydney Big Day Out show was simply tragic - performance is slowly usurping spectacle as the vehicle for Hole's unlikely comeback.
"This is probably the last club show we'll play till the end of our career," our cheerful heroine told us after the exhilarating show-starter, the sunny La pop gem, Awful. "You know what, Melissa? It's arenas from now on, goddam it!"
A superior singer and far more sensitive musician, it's unlikely bass player Melissa Auf Der Maur felt quite so cocky. As a stadium rock band, the new improved Hole need another 100 hours in the rehearsal room at least.
To put it politely, the unspeakably cool Auf Der Maur and shy blonde guitarist Eric Erlandson are yet to bond with new drummer Samantha Maloney. And mixed mercifully low for the most part, Love's guitar remains more prop than instrument.
The singer would no doubt rationalise the rough edges in terms of punk authenticity, a fair call for older tunes such as Rock Star (Erlandson had to show Love the chords), Doll Parts and Violet. But an album as pretty, tight and squeaky clean as Celebrity Skin demands a more practiced delivery.
So who cares? Precious few of the star-struck punters hanging off the chrome labyrinth of Metropolis, that's for sure. Just basking under Ms Love's fluttering, glittering eyelashes and drinking in her daft banter was thrilling enough for most.
Rough-shod versions of Miss Universe, Reasons To Be Beautiful and the sweetly soaring Heaven Tonight comprised a bonus which had the masses eating out of her hand early. Auf Der Maur's glorious harmonies even elated Malibu and Boys On The Radio out of ham-fisted hell and into the realm of beauty.
Decidedly dodgy were covers of The Lemonheads' Into Your Arms and a stab at the Chocolate Watch Band's version of It's All Over Now Baby Blue. Even with the promise of a free guitar for the winner, a stunned silence greeted Love's ensuing pop quiz (answer : some old hack called Bob Dylan).
But hey, music was nobody's priority on the night. Much to her fans delight, Love spent much of the performance standing astride her foldback monitors - even after trading her leather dacks for a short black frock - leaning into the crowd and engaging in long dialogues.
Her throwaway lines ("You love me? You don't even know me. I'm a bitch!") were greeted with the howls of mirth reserved in previous generations for the inspired wit of Oscar Wilde or Groucho Marx.
Maybe it was my imagination, but her band mates' faces seemed often to reflect the sentiment I dared not shout for the fear of lynching : "hey lady, shut up and play!"
By the past fortnight's woeful standards, Perth witnessed and excellent show But even purportedly free of the heroin haze which made Hole's 1994 Fremantle gig such a sorry spectacle, it's still the ex-Mrs Kurt Cobain's egocentric grandstanding which threatens to undermine her band's assent to greatness.
The gulf between mythology and reality remains - on stage if not on record.
Michael Dwyer
The West Australian, April 2, 1999
* This article was typed by Coma & used with her permission.