Music Express
HOLE, Phoenix, Toronto



"I don't want any fucking reviews," Courtney Love announced near the beginning of her set, which started almost an hour and a half late.  Love had a lot to prove with this tour - that she isn't going to fuck up like her late hubby, that she can recover from the two deaths and get her band together, that in the end her talent stands taller than her messy, larger-than-life persona. 

Well, the delay - supposedly because of a late flight, but naturally rumours were flying - didn't help.  Luckily, though, once she got there, Courtney was all there.  Montreal's Melissa Auf der Maur didn't have much time to settle in on bass, but that didn't seem to matter.  The band sounded great, performing a good chunk of Live Through This, a few songs from Pretty On The Inside and a couple of covers [including a half-hearted stab at Duran Duran's "Hungry Like A Wolf" that petered out after Love forgot the words] with a lot of confidence and, not surprisingly, a shitload of emotional baggage.

Courtney was born to play the drama queen - and now she has a perfect right to! - and her pain and anger add that extra edge to already brilliant songs like "Violet", "Jennifer's Body" and "Miss World."  She wears her tragedies with pride, wallowing in them as only a natural born performer can, singing "Doll Parts"' line "someday, you will ache like I ache" at full maudlin throttle, referring to herself as "out of it" and the performance as a "freak show," huskily demanding cigarettes and attempting to sing with one lit in her mouth and, most spectacularly, diving into the delighted crowd and emerging in the arms of a handler, waving weakly while being carried offstage. 

What an exit!


Mary Dickie