Nine Inch Nails and Hole put on spectacular, spooky show
 
 

It was an eerie feeling.

Appearing at the sold-out Roy Wilkins Auditorium at the St. Paul Civic Center in December 1993 were two bands that made two of the most important rock albums of the year - Nirvana, led by the fascinating Kurt Cobain, and the Breeders, a predominantly female, guitar-oriented group led by Kim Deal.

Appearing at the sold-out Roy Wilkins Auditorium Monday night were two bands that have made two of the most important rock albums of 1994 - Nine Inch Nails, led by the fascinating Trent Reznor, and Hole, a predominantly female, guitar-oriented band led by Courtney Love, Cobain's widow.

If Nirvana disappointed with its professionalism instead of punk aesthetic, Nine Inch Nails triumphed with one of the scariest, most powerful, most paranoid and most liberating rock performances seen in the Twin Cities.

Reznor's music is a psychic extension of Nirvana's. If Cobain sang about anger and alienation with occasional optimism, Reznor dwells in the house of hurt and hopelessness. He's obsessed with violence, gore and society's taboos. He sets his tortured expressions to loud, throbbing, computerized techno-metal. To call it uneasy listening is an understatement. Nonetheless, Nine Inch Nails' "Downward Spiral" is one of the most riveting albums of this year.

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Hole was as convincing as Nine Inch Nails. Courtney Love is one of rock's great kooks when she's not singing. On Monday, she variously introduced her band as Two Inch Nails and "We're Hole, as in black as your soul." She also tossed rubber chickens into the audience between songs, and she even brought out her and Cobain's 2-year-old daughter, Frances Bean, who was wearing industrial-strength headphones.

When Love sang, she proved to be one of rock's most stirring vocalists, an intriguing blend of pain and pleasure. She sings the prettiest painful love songs.

Love, who lives in Seattle, dedicated the brief, 35-minute set to Kristen Pfaff, Hole's Minneapolis-based bassist who died of a drug overdose in June. The revamped Hole sounded great, all controlled rhythmic fury as the quartet rocked through songs from the excellent "Live Through This." Love can rock hard, as she did on the careening, snarling "Credit in the Straight World," and she can ache softly, as she did on "Dull Parts."

The Nirvana-Breeders show last year was memorable. But the Nine Inch Nails-Hole concert was unforgettable.