Nirvana, Hole
Palladium, Hollywood
Friday, June 14
by Mike Gitter, July 20, 1991

(Excerpt)

GORGEOUS AND pained, grotesque and painted, Hole are simply the best band to rise out of LA’s neon mire in ages. Fronted by rail-thin yet eerily bloated Courtney Love (the original Faith No More frontperson, she also had bit parts in ‘Sid and Nancy’ and ‘Straight to Hell’), they’re an angry swirl that spits angst and exhileration (sic) with every howling chord.

Three-quarters female in membership (the fourth is emaciated, lank-haired guitarist Eric, who plays Sabbath like no one else – especially Sabbath themselves), there’s a revulsive chemistry at work here as enormous as it is delicate.

Courtney, deathly pale in a white flannel dressing gown, clutches tight to her guitar and spends most of the allotted 30 minutes speaking in angry tongues. Sexy and brutally honest, Hole reach deep into the female psyche and bring to the fore a long pent-up rage, making no excuses for any damage done along the jagged edges…