On the Road Again
by Sarah G.

Live Reviews

“Stop screaming for Marilyn Manson,” shrieked Courtney Love to some five thousand Vancouver fans at the Pacific Coliseum. “I bet you all have tiny dicks!”

If there is one thing Love does well, it is interacting with her audience. She gives them everything they could possibly want. Opening their set with a smashing performance of “Violet” from their second album Live Through This, Hole didn’t shy away from any of their punk-rock beginnings. Playing the title track from their hoarser-than-thou first album (Pretty On The Inside),and a haunting version of “Miss World”, Love spat, cuddled, flashed and swore all over her adoring fans. She made sure they didn’t forget how bad she used to be.

Clad in skin-tight black leather Capri pants, a bra, expensive new shoes and a body stocking, Love could hardly disguise that fact that her macrobiotic, yogic lifestyle has obviously gone out the window recently. Apparently rather drunk, it was quite apparent that the grace of 1997’s Versace-Love is on vacation and the Lollapalooza (slutty, swearing, self-absorbed) Courtney has returned — or did she ever go away?

Although it’s clear that Love’s guitar playing hasn’t ever improved from her stoner past pre-Larry Flynt-life, Love, bassist Melissa Auf der Maur and (check for a pulse) guitarist Eric Erlandson proved (despite bad publicity and fan’s accusations of selling out) that Hole can still relive the years of Grunge without being boring. They still put on a flamboyant rock show just as well as the next band — except for maybe the show’s headliner, Marilyn Manson. The antichrist superstar in question spent a good portion of the show flashing his ass-hole.

Throughout the hour-long set, Love constantly made reference to her personal history with the city of Vancouver, claiming “This town was so good to me when I was a poor little slut.” She also asked if Nardwuar the Human Serviette was in the house and repeatedly threatened to make Auf der Maur go topless in one of her favourite cities in Canada.

The climax of Hole’s set came much later when Manson shouted out to his audience that “Courtney Love was backstage playing with her stinky pussy.” At that point, Love stormed the stage mid-song with a dress over her head and started beating on him. An all ’round night of good family entertainment…