You know when you're in the presence of a genuine rock star. There's a tour bus the size of a Travelodge parked outside the venue, the (largely female) audience is dressed as the main attraction at various points in their career and as we get closer to the house lights dimming there's a detectable tension in the room.
The intro music is Ravel's 'Bolero' and as we're in Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean's (Torvill and Dean, kids ask your parents) home city I wonder if it's a cheeky musical reference; but later on Courtney names local attractions as Sherwood Forest (correct) and Richard III (close but no cigar, though plenty of e-cigs) it's probably just a lucky co-incidence. Courtney enters from stage left, dramatically drapes her veil over the mic stand and after a false start of the first few lines from 'Pretty On The Inside', “ Slutkiss girl,Won't you promise her smack?Is she pretty on the inside? Is she pretty from the back?” launches into 'Wedding Day', one half of her recently released double A side.
Two things which immediately strike are how tight the band of hired helps (including, as someone next to me spots, Ginger from The Wildhearts) is, and that roar of a voice grown in gravel and matured by Tequila and Malboro; Courtney frequently uses the between song gaps for a suck on an e-cigarette “ To tell the truth .I don't want to quit. If it kills me, it kills me.”
What follows is a blast through a Hole-heavy set list: 'Miss World', 'Reasons to be Beautiful', 'Malibu' “..Time for a hit”, and a particularly brutal 'Violet' the audience screaming the chorus “Go on, take everything, take everything, I want you to” back to the band. 'You Know My Name' the other half of the recent single is a fast, punky number addressed to celebrity reporters “Hey!I am the one. The one you blame. I'll bring the shame”.
When the five piece band aren't tearing through Hole's back catalogue, Courtney chats to the audience. During another nicotine break “I just discovered the more you drink the more I get paid. So go and get a drink. I need a new dress”, later on part of another chat with the fanatical front row, some of whom appear to have brought presents.. “It's not the 90's anymore. I don't stage dive and I don't get my tits out”, it takes little imagination to guess what she does next with a broad grin all over her face.
Final track of the main set is 'Celebrity Skin' with its' Godzilla-size guitar riff stomping all over Rock City, making sure the mini mosh-pits and audience shout-a longs keep going until the end of the show.
If you believe Courtney's recent tweets Hole are rehearsing together with a reunion of sorts now highly likely, and the very public kiss and make-up with Dave Grohl at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction for Nirvana means that Courtney Love 2014 appears to be a reflective and wiser version ; nonetheless one that's happy to drink, smoke, swear on-stage, play great music and generally age disgracefully, which is surely how we all want our rock stars to behave.
A lesson for others; “Be More Courtney”.
Alisdair Whyte