Austin American-Statesman from Austin, Texas • 102

7 Hole possesses Liberty Lunch stage with its powerful but tattered grace tormingon- stageinatat- tered, black fur coat, furiously pumngona cigarette, bleached-out, knotted hair held up with a pink rose, face ghost-white and covered with sparkles and blemishes that showed through thick makeup, Courtney Iwe began to sing, but only a hoarse, whispery yell came out. "My voice is shot," she croaked into the mike at Liberty Lunch on Tuesday. "Bring me some whiskey." While one of the nervous review by dtborih stagehands went in search of this, she sang a quiet song that doesn't appear americart-statman staff "Don't you hate it when you go to a show and the band talks about monitors?" Listening to the shouts of the audience (marriage proposals and song requests) she nodded her head and tried to resiond to each one. "Yeah, we'll play that one. OK, that one, too.

We'll play Freeblrd if you ask." She also talked about LTs Jennifer Finch (who played Liberty Lunch on Monday): "We were pen pals when we were 12. She put an ad in Maximum Hock 'N' Roll, but now we're both corporate whores." After playing a half hour set or so, the band took a a short break. Then. Love (who changed into a tight, black slip and a fresh coat of blood-red lipstick) and the band returned, deli trays in hand, and proceeded to throw frxxl at the audience your before launching Into the encore, During the last song, she stepped off the stage, guitar in hand, into the audience, who carried her along a little bit before a panicked, angry l(xk crossed her face and she asked for help from the bouncers. Back on stage, the rest of the band gone, she took to the microphone like a punk Sally Raphael, and demanded to know why women can't stage dive without being physically violated.

"How come 1 can't stage dive? Eddie Vedder can stage dive. Eddie Ved der gets passed all the way back like he's Jesus I was out there for two seconds, and two people had their fingers in my orifices. I don't know any girl who can stage dive. Jennifer (Finch) can't stage dive, and she wears three pairs of Jeans. I'm not trying to sound like Bikini Kill, but I want an answer." She passed the mike around, eliciting comments from the audience (Including "You're the Mary Magdalene of Unsatisfied, she dismissed Austin: "1 thought this was supposed to be a hip, little town" and then pulled a Flipper (strumming the guitars and leaning them up against the amps creating a roar of feedback) before she smiled at the audience and left the stage.

Love's show was equal parts freakshow, musical comedy and high drama. Love and Hole pulled it off with tattered grace. nerngsdpite having a on either of I iole's albums. The lyrics reminded the audience of her personal traumas of the past year: "I le said he would never go away." After a few more cigarettes and a dramat ic gargle with the whiskey, Ms. l)ve and her voice began to warm up.

Her band, Hole, resembled a troop of bra ve (but si ightly fright-ened) soldiers following an unpredictable leader. More than once, f)ve yelled and gestured angrily at her powerful drummer Patty Sehemel and bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur, who both looked sheepish. Guitarist Eric Krlandson remained in the shad ows of the corner of the stage and escapwi her wrath, although she did blame the loss of her voice on him, saying, "I've been yelling at Eric all day; now it's karma that my voice went out." I)ve wore the punk rebel persona as if she had invented it, creating an atmosphere of excitwl tension, a feeling that everything might spin out of control at any minute. She was a blur of lipstick, white hair, smeared mascara and bossy supreme a perfect picture of the messed up rock star, which might have seemed contrived if it weren't so flawlessly executed. When she screamed into the mike, she was anguished pain personified, eyes closed, head tilted back, teeth bared.

There was the impression during a few of the songs that the band had no idea what was coming next and uu icreams out live performance. She's altered many of the lyrics, increasing their power. In Think That 1 Would she sang the original lyrics "they took my baby," and added "he's all gone." Though possessing only half her usual vocal wattage, Ive managed to carry off every song with intensity, passion and flashes of wry humor, her cracking voice adding even more pathos and pain to songs such as Miss World and Gutless. The band was tight, providing a solid foundation for Love's searing vocals and raging emotions. Her between-song banterintros seemed unrehearsed, giving the curious and adoring audience glimpses of her 'real' personality.

She stopped at one point, swearing vehemently about a technical problem with the monitors. Then she turned to the audience and said in an aside, and guitariwiw was just playing musical follow the leader. On several occasions, I)ve lapsed into a stream of consciousness delivery, such as mixing old Hole songs (Teenatie Whore) with poems, what sounded like a bit of a Nirvana song and '80s pop hits such as Duran Duran's llunury Like the Wolf greatest song ever This meandering would eventually lead into current songs from I Am Through This, and as the band members began to recognize familiar material, they joined in. Somehow this was seamlessly carried off and kept the audience captivated. The huge personal changes in Love's life (the deaths of husband Kurt Cobain and I lole bassist Kristen Pfafl) which occurred since she wrote and recorded her latest songs are reflected in her.