Fans at Hole Concert
December 9, 1994, by James Verniere

The fuzzy pop sound of Helium floats through the Orpheum lobby on Sunday night, out into the dead end of Hamilton Place, where two 17-year-old girls from Everett are bewailing their misfortune.

“I didn’t do nothing!” cries Monique Chapsky, a tall, husky girl in brown overalls and neon-yellow hair jammed into a tight middle part with plastic barrettes.

“I’m the one who got here at 4:30 in the morning for tickets and I’m out here and they’re in there,” she says to her petite, dark-haired friend, Rosanna Carinelli. “Janet woulda never even heard of Hole if it wasn’t for me, she don’t even know what Hole sings.”

The lament continues as small groups of concertgoers drift by, tickets in hand. “That girl at the door is a dyke, she don’t like me,” claims Chapsky. Carinelli contributes a running chorus of support – “It ain’t fee-yah!” – as they cross the street and try to buy a T-shirt from a man who’s locking up a merchandise truck. He shrugs and walks away.

“Why is everybody being so mean to me?” Chapsky whimpers, stung from the night’s injustices. “They said ‘You’re drinking from a bottle, you’re outta here’,” she relates, eyes welling up. “They put the flashlight under the seat, they couldn’t find no bottle.”

“I liked Hole before everyone jumped on the Courtney Love bandwagon when Kurt Cobain died,” Chapsky continues. “Sorry, but I listened to ‘Pretty on the Inside’ before anyone knew about Hole.”

Inside the Orpheum, the halls and stairwells are jammed with boys in barrettes and girls in Urban Outfitter tomboy clothes. Someone comments that there are more Kurts than Courtneys. A kid snakes through the tangle in the main lobby, intoning, “Do you have a cigarette? Do you have any acid?”

A couple of high-schoolers are discussing Celtic runes on the stairwell. A young couple sprawled across a landing writhes and grinds in a mad makeout session. In the balcony, as the house lights go down and the doll-strewn stage becomes bathed in pink, a female fan commences screaming hysterically for her her idol – “Courtney! Courtney!” – as the boys behind her add “Show us your –!”

When the show lets out, the crowd streams up toward Tremont Street, where teenagers are helping WAAF staff pass out bumper stickers. “Here, take one,” Monique Chapsky says, smiling happily, her tears all dried, looking like a little girl who found some new friends.