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Written by Amy Burger Wednesday, 14 July 2010 20:15

Love’s deep, raspy growl has always been the soul of Hole and that soul is still at least mostly intact.
 

Photos: Jaimie Johnson

The Pageant, St. Louis

Let’s face it: Nineties rock goddess Courtney Love has often been more famous (or infamous) for her bat-shit crazy antics on MTV, her public meltdowns and angry tirades at concerts, and as of late, her nonstop and often incoherent ramblings on Twitter, than for her music. Love’s recent two-hour VH-1 “Behind the Music” documentary only helped secure her position as everyone’s favorite trainwreck.

I suppose that’s why it wasn’t really all that surprising that Hole was more than 45 minutes late to start their set at The Pageant last night. I mean, with Courtney, you kind of feel like maybe you’ve only got a 50-50 shot of her showing up at all.

Lady Love and her boys (no other females in the band’s new lineup) took the stage near 10 p.m. to cheers from a very anxious crowd, apologizing for her tardiness and promising to make it up by playing longer. Unfortunately that didn’t happen as Hole’s entire set (including the encore) was just under an hour. Now, in my personal opinion, the majority of that hour rocked, and they did cover a lot of Hole’s best material; but there was definitely an element of shock and “that was it?” in the air upon the abrupt 11 p.m. ending, particularly considering the extreme lateness starting the show.

Hole opened with a raw tease of the band’s debut album title track “Pretty on the Inside,” leading into a brief cover of the Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” (which seemed awkward at best) then into the angry “Skinny Little Bitch,” from the band’s new album Nobody’s Daugther (Island/Def Jam), the first since 1998’s Celebrity Skin. This song is the standout on the new record and probably the closest to the energy of the band’s earlier material.

Love’s deep, raspy growl has always been the soul of Hole and that soul is still at least mostly intact. It may sound a bit more rough around the edges (from years of hard living and chain smoking no doubt) but I think it’s safe to say most Hole fans never loved Courtney for her “perfect” vocals. Her raw emotion and hard-edged nature is what endears us to her. I actually thought she sounded pretty good. I’ve always loved her voice because it is so distinctively her and it’s always honest.

The highlight of the brief set was undoubtedly the back-to-back performance of “Miss World” and “Violet” from Hole’s 1994 masterpiece Live Through This. Love’s unmistakeable shriek on Violet’s chorus, “Go on, take everything, take everything, I want you to” felt as raw and powerful as the first time I heard it so many years ago, especially standing at her feet, directly in front of the stage. When she gives it her all, she is fierce. It’s difficult not to forgive her faults in moments like that.

To be sure, the older material sounded the best (although still somewhat lacking without former band members and songwriters like Eric Erlandson and Melissa Auf der Mauer). New tunes “Letters to God,” “Pacific Coast Highway” and “Someone Else’s Bed” fell a bit flat, with the vocals on the latter even painful at times. A Leonard Cohen cover didn’t seem to win anyone over either.

Hole ended the main set with what are probably the band’s two most mainstream “popular” songs, “Celebrity Skin” and “Doll Parts.” While it was enjoyable to hear these favorites, they did come off a bit cheesy, enhanced by every girl in the place screaming the lyrics louder than Love herself. She even did the one thing I hate most at concerts – when the artist turns the microphone to the crowd to let them sing their favorite lyrics – in this case, “I want to be the girl with the most cake.” It really ruined the song for me as I came to hear her sing it and not every drunk girl on the dance floor.

After a brief “cupcake break” (Love noted several times that she had not eaten and felt faint), Hole returned, Love declaring, “I’m gonna fuckin’ go to McDonald’s after this, I swear,” before launching into “Malibu.” She showed her love for the Stones once again with a trippy cover of “Play with Fire,” after which she thanked a couple girls in the front row for buying t-shirts, saying “It keeps me in shoes.”

Up close, Love’s age is unquestionably showing – her face worn, but “plastic” from Botox and surgical enhancements. She guzzled water and juice as she smoked cigarettes between songs and asked “Are we in a bar? Where are we?” at one point.

The show ended abruptly at 11, house lights coming up quickly to the dismay of the crowd, still standing with full drinks in hand. Oddly, Love never introduced the new members of her band, or even so much as nodded an acknowledgment in their direction, other than saying to the audience "My band is tired, my drummer's arm is about to fall off."
 

I suppose if you think about it, it’s not like Hole has that much material to fill a two or three hour set. They played only an hour but played a fair mix of songs from across the band’s catalogue, and most of the songs fans expected to hear.

While the crowd’s emotions outside the venue seemed to range from satisfaction to indifference to anger, I couldn’t help but feel like it was still a pretty entertaining show (if brief). Perhaps my expectations were set just low enough to come out pleased – after all, an hour of mostly good and coherently played music from someone who is generally known for complete mental (and often physical) instability seems pretty much like a win. She held it together for an hour, and I’m not really sure I expected much more.  

I honestly think many folks were less dissatisfied at the music than the fact that she didn’t have a total meltdown (as she apparently did at her D.C. show a few weeks ago). Some people came to see the freak show, but instead what they got was a decent performance and relatively polite (at times even poised) behavior from one of rock’s most iconic women. Did I want her to play more? Sure; but I’m happy that I got to hear her sing at all. I’m a fan, and I still love her. | Amy Burger