Eye Weekly
LIVE EYE
Hole with Bite


In a staggeringly short time, Courtney Love has gone from being an object of ridicule and loathing to the latest pop culture icon.  Reviews of Hole's second album, Live Through This, were nothing short of slobbering raves.  Ah, I thought, the press carrying on with Love where they left off with Cobain.  But then I listened to Hole's creepily-timed release -- it only took a few whirls of the savage, twisted yet brilliant disc for me to fall madly in love with it.

At the Phoenix there was a near-visible air of expectation.  Would Hole be any good live, considering the traumas that Love has recently undergone?  But first, Bite, a three-piece grrrl band from Montreal, opened the show with songs ranging in sound value from 54-40 to Sonic Youth, ending with a corker of a humorous, heavy, L7-ish mock "Slave To My Dick."

As the wait for Hole grew, the anticipatory-excitement-vibe was further exaggerated by MTV randomly interviewing Kurt and Courtney clones.  Then DJ Martin Streek came over the P.A. to twitter on about how artists shouldn't be detained at the border - the gist of his ranting was that Love would be arriving shortly from the airport with police escort.

When Hole took the stage, Love's first words were "Melissa Auf der Maur," by way of introducing the new bass player from Montreal.  "I'll live through the nuclear winters!" declared Love.  "This show is for Kristen" (referring to Kristen Pfaff, Hole's former bass player who died of a suspected overdose some months ago).

The songs from Live Through This seemed to speak more directly of Seattle's Sid & Nancy than they did when they were recorded.  After the anguished line "If you live through this with me/I swear that I would die for you" ("Asking For It"), Love wiped her eyes as if crying.  In "Doll Parts" the line-before-its-time "someday you will ache like I ache" was given particular raw-vocal emphasis. 

Now that Love is a single mother, "Plump" spat even more ferociously in Vanity Fair's general direction as the bleach-blonde howled, "I don't do the dishes/I throw them in the crib" (in retaliation for an article portraying her as a junkie-mom).

In terms of stage patter, Love was genuine, polite, sometimes saucy and sometimes emotional.  This show was well worth the wait because hole were absolutely mesmerizing, so whatever one thinks about Love - she rocks.  And she's tough as hell.



- Emily Smith