Courtney Love
o2 Academy, Bristol | 19 May
Hollywood has a lot to answer for. They created a monster out of Courtney Love. But then again, she was asking for it, wasn’t she? Well, no. She was just being herself. In spite of the rumours, the gossip, the disgust and the shame the media has thrown at her throughout her career, she’s never once given up.
It would be ignorant to suggest that her gender hasn’t made the spectacle of Courtney Love all the more discussed. It’s a shame, but that’s the way Hollywood – and in fact most of society – works, and Love’s paradoxical battle with her representation is one she’s fought with self-deprecation, self-awareness and an inability to give a fuck what anyone else thinks about it. When she walks onstage to a packed o2 in Bristol wearing a £16 Topshop playsuit, she embodies the Courtney Love we all know and some of us adore. The mascara-smeared eyes, the prom queen on the cover of Hole’s seminal album Live Through This is still very much ‘the girl with the most cake.’ Courtney Love is back and it’s like she never even went away.
She’s joined on stage by a band that includes, to the delight of many screaming fans, Ginger Wildheart on guitar. As Courtney smirks at the audience and growls the opening lines of Miss World we’re relieved to hear we’ll be treated to at least a taste of everything we loved about Hole tonight. What we didn’t expect was that the next song they’d play would be Honey, and then the wonderful Gold Dust Woman. Courtney’s on form, entertaining us with her confrontation. The 49-year-old peroxide princess jumps atop the speakers while screeching full pelt into the mic and yet, for some reason, needs a guitar tech to simply lift her guitar off her back. “Thank you Dunc” she says as the young tech places her Rickenbacker over her shoulders.
Then it happens; she starts playing those three chords that make Malibu one of the most timeless and defining songs of the 90s. That’s the thing – believe it or not, Courtney Love has written some amazing pop songs. Sure, she loves attention, sure she’s famously crass, but then what celebrity is any different? Love just has the guts to show it up for what it really is. Songs like Malibu really drive home the point that she can write beautiful songs that satirise, with an aim to deconstruct, the fabled dream of celebrity. After blasting her way through a perfectly structured set – Reasons To Be Beautiful and Jennifer’s Body teeming with unhinged energy, a stunningly emotional rendition of Violet – she reaches her conclusion with a note perfect reconstruction of Celebrity Skin, and our starlet leaves the stage to an adoring roar. Throughout the set she’s made us laugh whilst shamelessly attempting the British accent, challenged our perceptions of what a 49-year-old can do onstage and left us reminded that she is one of the most overlooked songwriters of her generation.
When she returns for the encore she’s covered in red, a tight, red carpet-worth dress, bright lipstick, clutching roses for the crowd. She sits on the middle monitor and serenades us with an acoustic and affecting Softer, Softest before being joined by her band for a full on Doll Parts.
That’s it. Courtney Love has still got it.
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Words: Billy Black
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