One Woman Circus
July 14, 1995
by ??

(Excerpt)

Hole was on next. Or shall we say the “wasted widow” that is Courtney Love. Either way neither needed an introduction. Love wobbled to the mic and screamed that she “Fucking hated this part of the country!!” then, out-of-control-like jumped towards the crowd.

Not going far, Courtney was helped back on stage, stumbling towards a roadie who waited patiently with her guitar. Finally getting her act together after chatting with a “promo or two,” she shouted and peeled about her “Beautiful Son,” and then dragged her band down to a dramatic (to say the least) “Miss World” where she began to grope herself madly, barely played her guitar, and stopped the band altogether at one point so she could stare down a member of the pit.

Not even two weeks worth of the tour had taken over yet, and it was assumed (quite assuredly) that Love wouldn’t make it even THAT far by her behavior. At the already previous Lollapalooza shows, Courtney had punched out a rival female singer backstage at the first show, called co-headliners Cypress Hill “pothead pussies” from the stage in Vancouver, and assaulted the crowd at both the Denver and Kansas City shows. Love was like a puppet hanging this way and that, with the wind blowing her like a rag doll onto the stage with an instrument, only to send her propelling into the audience for some backlash despite her vulnerability and what appeared to be lack of lucidity.

Hole surprisingly pulled Courtney together (for a few minutes) to play a new song that Love whispered was called “Sugar Coma” and the band’s billboard hit, “Doll Parts.”

Love was helped offstage by an assistant and her bass player, Melissa auf der Maur, after stage-diving at the end of Hole’s set, her black-slip dress torn half off of her. Looking rattled and disdained in an awkward, “amused” way, she threw a microphone stand at us and her guitar, then flipped us off before disappearing into the eaves of backstage.