Date: September 3rd, 1994
Country: UK
Pix:

 
 
 

READING 94 MAIN STAGE FRIDAY

Review of Hole's performance:

.... But it has to be Courtney Love who command's today's attentions.  However great the musical interludes in between, it was only ever going to be Hole's show.

Dressed all in gold, Courtney is the star who shimmers over an entire field of fans wearing her late husband's image across their chests.  "Let's pretend it never happened," is her rasping, cynical introduction.  This is both brave and upsetting; "Beautiful Son" is horribly poignant, and "Jennifer's Body" doesn't see the soul-shredding let up for one second.  This is Ms Love's grim dignity, preserving her forever as the one figure of pure darkness thrusting rusty nails of realism into the lukewarm dreams of the second generation, tie-dyed flower children at her feet, letting loose secrets too terrible for any of us to ever imagine.  It also leaves her in that most unenviable of positions: everybody wants to know about her, but few would really want to know her.

After Hole's suspension of time in graven images, no one can quite claim the main stage as their own.
 
 
 
 

COURT IN THE ACT
THINGS COURTNEY
LOVE IS RUMOURED
TO HAVE DONE

* YES - Due to goading above and beyond the call of duty, Courtney, at the behest of our own Everett True, went up to David Gedge and asked him if he was in "A lame losing indie band?"

"Yes," says a bemused Gedge.  "And do you know Steve Albini?" Courtney persists.

"Uh, yeah," Gedge replies.  So Courtney starts beating him up in front of enthralled on-lookers.  Out of over a thousand nearby industry ligging scum, not one of them went to help Gedge.  Apart from David Jennings.  Indeed, many of them handed Courtney sharp objects, bricks, and barbed wire to be wrapped around the hand - one person handing Courtney a cricket bat looked suspiciously like Gedge's press officer.  Strange, that.
 

* NO - Courtney turned up at the Reading Guest Entrance in a limousine without her Performers pass, and when Security pointed this out, and asked for identification, Courtney then slung her legs out of the window and said, "These stockings cost more than you earn in a fucking year.  I've got a great big shiny red guitar on the back seat.  I'm in a fucking LIMOUSINE.  I THINK I might POSSIBLY be a rock star.  Now, fuck off out of my way, and let me in."  They let her in.
 

* YES - a ban was put on the handing out of Access All Areas passes to journalists, because Courtney was "paranoid" about people taking photographs of her.  Unfortunately, the Access All Areas passes also allowed Maker journalists access to the Melody Maker signing tent.  There then followed the amusing spectacle of pissed Maker journalists climing over the tables whilst Pavement were doing their signings, in order to get to the free chilled beer.
 

* NO - Courtney turned up with Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins - they were seen walking round and round the Backstage Enclosure, and garbled reports had it that she and Billy were talking about doing a song together onstage.  This turned out to be bollocks, naturally.  Billy Corgan is on tour in New Zealand; or having urgent plastic surgery on his tiny cute wee up-turned fairy fucking nose to make it cuter; or in remand for being crap, or something.
 

* YES - Courtney came onstage to the kind of cheers one expects to hear greeting disabled children who've just done something selfless for charity, and Courtney stands there for a minute, lights up a cigarette and drawls "Yeah, yeah, I know.  I'm so fucking BRAVE."
 

* YES - Courtney ran onstage during Sebadoh AND The Lemonheads performances, and had to be restrained from running back onstage again afterwards by, again, our own  Everett True.
 

* YES - she changed the lyrics to "Miss World" from "I am the girl you know/Can't look you in the eye" to "I am the girl you know/The one who should have died".  She also changed the lyrics of "Teenage Whore" from "I'd pay good money not to be ignored" to "I'd pay good money just to be ignored", and, at the end of the song, she raised her arms into a crucifix pose, and stayed there for a minute.  "I seem to have been doing this for a living recently," she said grimly.
 

* YES - She also took Reading as an opportunity to lay a few rumours to rest.  "Contrary to what you may have read or heard, I have NOT, absolutely NOT been playing 'Hunt The Sausage' with Evan Dando."
 

* YES - Holly Dando, Evan's sister, comes on stage to massive wolf whistles to give Courtney a light.  "We had a competition last night," Courtney says.  "We wanted to find out whose legs were longer.  She won by three inches."