A human abattoir.
Or the closest legal equivalent.
The hell hole Terminal 5 where they herd us in like cattle waiting to be slaughtered and we pay fifty bucks for the privilege. The sadistic owners who with all the state of the art imaginable built a fucking warehouse with three floors and not a siteline.
And then there is Courtney Love who is leading the COURTNEY LOVE SIDE HACK BAND she calls Hole through the paces last night where they put the terminal into Terminal 5
In a post earlier today but written yesterday before the set, I said if Courtney was bad I had a story and if she was good I had a better story. But what if she was neither?
In a truly shrug worthy performance Hole played odds and sods off her diabolical twosome Celebrity Skin and Nobody’s Daughter plus a coupla sure shots from Live Through This. None of it very good, none of it all that bad.
Let’s plus and minus the set:
Plus-
1. Courtney looks pretty health, dressed like Stevie Nicks if Stevie cut off her dresses at the thigh and looking like Stevie if Love would cut back on the toot and stick some doughnuts down her throa. She actually looked clean.
2. The set was a very brisk forty-give minutes. A rip off but still, no more than I wanted for sure.
3. It was a professional hit job of a set. Play the songs, thank the audience, go home.
Minus-
1. Love didn’t connect with the audience for a second.
2. The band were boring.
3. Courtney was boring.
Yes, folks, except for a “Hello there you little fuckers,” the every night is an experience in the theatre of the real girl, played a by the numbers set of grungy power pop. There is zero point in complaining that Courtney has no voice. We know she has no voice. But we expect her to make up for it with personality and by the second song, a perfunctory “Violet”, it was obvious she had left all character and individuality at home. It was actually a little scary in its irrelevance.
I’ve seen Love crowd surf, I’ve seen her introduce a song as “I Slept With the Devil” before dedicating it to Trent Reznor, I’ve seen the most furious mosh pit ever at a Love concert (me and Gilliam almost got killed in the middle of it). She has discussed Cobain’s death and her love life and asked for a vote if she should agree to a tour.
And last night Love not only did none of the above, she had the affrontary to begin her encore (after switching from a hideous black dress to a hideous white dress) with a Stones cover. What???? Seven years later, Love doesn’t play “Softer, Softest” but finds time for an absolutely irrelevant cover.
I don’t want to sound too indignant or you might think it was fun and it wasn’t any fun. Painful from time to time and a little embarrassing when she emotes on some crap newbie wondrin whether God knows the real Courtney (you’re not that deep, kid, everybody knows the real Courtney). But, hey, at least it’s over in a hurry and really there is nothing to be upset about.
I’ve written how if you are not enjoying a show you should check out the audience and the audience liked it fine but didn’t love it and after the concert people were whining a little. The Live Through This songs got an enthuisastic response as did a couple off the new album, especially “Pacific Coast Highway” which improved on the recorded version.
But Courtney was a stoic presense in the middle of that stage, barely moving behind a buncha session players with no real enthuisiasm. The second to last song was a nothing so much “Doll’s Part”. Courtney didn’t speak to us, didn’t attempt to connect to us, couldn’t sell her songs and proved herself a true professional who may forge a nice little career for herself. I really expected to love her or hate her but Love proved herself to be the last thing I expected: somebody it is hard to have an opinion about.
Live through this? If you can call this living.