SXSW 2010: Courtney Love resurrects Hole
AUSTIN, Texas -- Courtney Love used South by Southwest to relaunch Hole as a band and herself as a rock star Friday. Both had been away for most of the last decade.
As she walked on the stage at Stubbs, it was difficult to determine if the near-capacity audience was there to cheer her comeback or witness its premature demise.
As one fan put it soon after Love began playing, "I feel like this is a sociological experiment. Everyone loves a good trainwreck."
It wasn't a trainwreck. It was competent, something Love never aspired to be.
In the last decade she has been a tabloid punching bag and punch line, a Twitter junkie, a cautionary tale. She has been in the news more for her custody battles and her handling of the estate of her late husband, Kurt Cobain, than for her own music. Her last album, the solo release "America's Sweetheart," was released in 2004. The last Hole album, "Celebrity Skin," appeared in 1999. Over its fractured, off-and-on 21-year history, Hole has had eight different lineups. Love appeared Friday with the ninth, a quintet whose role was clearly to provide professional backup and nothing more.
Looking like a Sunset Boulevard gypsy -- a little bit Stevie Nicks, a little bit Axl Rose -- Love had no trouble commanding the stage. She planted her left foot on a stage monitor and strummed a guitar like the don't-mess-with-me Love of old. She and her band covered the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" at the outset, and hit on many of the early high points of her career, including "Violet" and "Miss World." These were reminders of a particular moment, when Love's music and personality were at the center of the rock culture, a female voice that managed to be both vulnerable and terrifying. She didn't need to prod anyone to sing along with the choruses.
But the point of the show was to introduce Hole's new material, and it was a tough sell. The songs from the forthcoming album, "Nobody's Daughter," scheduled for release in late April, were characterized by Love's typically tart, semi-autobiographical lyrics about abusive relationships. The sound picked up from the melodic California pop underpinnings of "Celebrity Skin," with acoustic guitar laying a rhythm foundation, spiked by the occasional blood-curdling scream or guitar rave-up. It all felt a little familiar and played out.
Love was often more interesting than her songs. She joked about the subject matter: "This is one of those rehab songs"; "This song reminds me of hate sex, when you punch someone right in the middle of it." Yet the music had a pedestrian quality; one tune explicitly echoed a mid-'80s pop-metal power ballad. Many had interesting parts -- a chord change, a dynamic shift from wall of guitars to voice and bass -- that didn't quite add up to a solid song.
But Love never let that stop her. She may not have the goods this time, but the bravado was intact, much like the character in one of her new songs, "Samantha": "Watch her wrap her legs around this world."
You and the Chicago Tribune are such tired old bags. They should pave your city turn it into a parking lot and make you the attendant. Grandpa Greg... your time has passed.
Your city is screwed Oprah is leaving
Posted by: Samantha L | March 21, 2010 at 03:58 AM
The Seattle sound of the 90s was like a raging bonfire on a beach. Hole was never anything more than a tiny spark that popped up and out of that fire, on a trajectory whose zenith was low and duration was brief.
Courtney Love burning brightly and out of control, for that very brief moment in time, was all there was to Hole. Can't make a fire from ashes in the sand. Sounds like a train wreck might have been the better show, Greg.
Posted by: dbcgr | March 21, 2010 at 06:24 AM
Samantha, I think Greg is younger than Courtney... well, at least her first face (maybe not the new mask she sports).
Posted by: The Troof | March 21, 2010 at 12:39 PM
I was expecting a trainwreck at the show but was pleasantly surprised. Check out this photo I snapped:
http://www.iloveitsf.com/2010/03/20/sxsw-afterthoughts/
Posted by: Kara | March 21, 2010 at 07:55 PM