Date: 02-15-1995
Venue: Roseland Ballroom
Location: New York, NY
From: g…@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Subject: Review of 2/15 Hole Concert at Roseland
Date: 19 Feb 1995 19:47:27 -0500
I arrived late because my job is in darkest New Jersey. Crossed the great water from Staten Island, plunged into the subway, passed through tired commuters, beautiful weeping acoustic guitarist, shouting preacher, shouting crazyman, shrieking and grinding trains, surfaced into cool rainy neony streetlit New York City midtown night, where scalpers were hawking Hole tickets at $50 each and endless taxis honked. Follwed the crowd to Roseland.
I got frisked at the door, very thoroughly; I suppose the fat thug on guard thought I, being a literal graybeard, had to be carrying recording equipment, or perhaps he wanted to cop a feel of my lithe, if antiquated, body. Meditatively he squeezed my keys. Then I was released, and I made my way into the inner darkness where the show was in progress, with Motel Shootout on the stage. It was about 8 o’clock.
The crowd was more varied than the one at last year’s Stone Pony concert, where I was probably the only middle-aged person not a father protecting his daughters from the dangers of the mosh pit. There, high-schoolers predominated; at Roseland, there were more people who seemed to be in their twenties, or older. In front of the stage, the crowd was too densely packed to mosh. A few people managed to surf, got thrown in the bouncer run in front of the stage, and climbed back or left. There were a few Courtneys in the crowd, and a few Goths as well. Unlike our February 16th reviewer, I did not see anyone displaying prestigious books, and I kept my own well hidden.
I cleverly made my way past the packed crowd to the side of the stage, where some trunks had been upended to provide a kind of barrier. These were untenanted, so I leaned on one. I found I was about forty feet from stage center, and directly in front of all the neat equipment used to control the sound, light, and smoke (except for that produced by the audience, which had a distinct gageish tinge.) After awhile others discovered how clever I had been, but in spite of some judicious shoving, they were unable to dislodge me from my post.
I found Motel Shootout’s music passable, their postgrunge act someone unconvincing, however. They played for about half an hour more, and departed. Some person of imaginative taste put _The_Cure_for_Pain_ (Morphine) on the sound system. After a mere forty minutes or so, and pretty much on time, Hole appeared on stage. I had been hoping they would come past the area I was next to, but no such luck; I’ll have to wait until next time to chat Courtney up about our Internet correspondence (one message each way a long time ago).
I found that I was about 20 feet from Melissa, and had a good view of Courtney and Patty. Eric was at the far side of the stage. To start the concert, Courtney threw water from a Naya bottle and little mint valentines to the crowd. Baptism and communion? She continued to do this in between songs, plus, I believe, a doll or two. At the beginning of the concert she was wearing a short black dress with a kind of incredible push-up bra effect; it didn’t look like very conducive to singing, but I suppose one sings mostly with one’s diaphragm, not the upper chest. Her mane was not as full as sometimes; possibly its leoninity was reduced by the wet weather.
The first few songs were marred by equipment difficulties, which made the band nervous and threw them off somewhat; Courtney and Melissa were signaling and conferring with the fellow running the board in the midst of trying to play. This meant that it took them longer to get warmed up; four or five songs, instead of two or three. Most of the songs were from _Live_Through_This_ plus a number of favorites from _Pretty_on_the_Inside_. Also, they did “Beautiful Son” and two other songs I did not recognize, one of which had a bluesy drone I liked quite a bit. I believe Courtney said it was an old song, but I don’t know whether this meant it was a cover or a song that had been composed by Hole but left out of the albums. I hope they keep it in the repertoire.
I was not able to observe all of Courtney’s interactions with the audience because the speakers occluded my view of the front of the stage, but at one point she pulled a young man out of the audience onto the stage, wrestled with him briefly, and then had him make a brief speech, after which he jumped back into the pit. Later, she seemed to be leaning over the audience allowing those who could reach her guitar to play it. However, she didn’t jump on the crowd, to my relief; I think she’s reached the degree of fame, and audiences have reached the size, where serious nut cases are likely to be present. I noticed in regard to this that, as I predicted, Frances Bean wasn’t present for this performance, at least not as far as I could see. In general the crowd was very enthusiastic, occasionally shouting some of the more familiar passages.
I mustn’t forget the disco balls. Roseland has disco balls, and Courtney demanded they be produced, lowered, and twirled, and it was so. Robot stage lights nodded to them and each other through the haze.
Towards the end of the concert, Hole disappeared for awhile, and then returned with Courtney wearing a red dress, somewhat looser than the previous black dress, for the last two or three songs. It was a long concert, more than two hours. Finally, the band left the stage and Courtney tore up all the equipment, convincing the audience that the show was over.
In general I think the band is more coherent than they were at the Stone Pony, so that they can play around more: Eric, for instance, at one point used a piece of cloth to brush the strings of his guitar to good effect, and played with the feedback quite a bit.
They’re getting very good. Their sound seemed to me somewhat more spare to me than either the other concert or the records, which I liked, but that may be because I was behind the speakers. Also, I was out of the way of the struck-by-lightning effect I got by being right in front of the stage at the Stone Pony. Courtney is a very powerful performer; the only person I’ve seen outside of grand opera who projects herself as powerfully is Diamanda Galas. I hope she can keep it up.
The prig squad will be dismayed to hear that the band all appeared to be stony-cold sober, well-rested, in good health, and fully competent.