I've also been to a Hole concert - the first time they played Boston at the Orpheum Theater - and have never seen anyone so pathetic and so obviously sick put up on stage for the world to see. As another reporter for a national publication said: "Yeah, I've seen her in concert, too. The girl has snakes in her head."
Courtney Love began by storming up to the mike and screaming, "FUCK YOU! I hate this fucking city!" - and it went on from there. Unlike many critics, I am not blown away by her music or her "psychic" lyrics. Her work, like almost all current pop music, is mediocre at best. The hall was only two-thirds full, and very few seemed to be familiar with her songs. Like myself, nearly all appeared to be there because this was the late Kurt Cobain's wife: it was a place for Nirvana fans to go as they continued to deal with his death. From time to time Love would stop, sometimes mid-song, to scream into the mike, "Nigger! Kike! Cunt!" like an abused child desperate for attention - or to pick up a rose someone had thrown her and try to eat the blossom before gagging - or to perform her set pieces about Kurt. She'd look up in the air, as if addressing him in heaven, and say things like: "I gave you a morning blowjob, I made breakfast for you, so just leave me the fuck alone!" (Remember, this is stuff she was now saying at every show.) That I was watching a truly crazy person was confirmed by the ample space her bandmates afforded her. They weren't in awe of her. They were afraid of her, in the way people are afraid of a running chainsaw. This was no female mad genius, a la Jim Morrison, on a bad night. This bad night, this meaningless insanity, was Courtney Love's act. This was her shtick. As I left - after a powerful conclusion where Courtney fell to the floor so we could all see her panties - I felt as if I'd been to a talent show at a hospital for the clinically insane, featuring the ex-stripper and junkie from Ward 6 who played songs she'd written herself.
Although, as I recently learned, even that's no longer true.