There was a moment right before Hole went on when I looked at my Twitter feed (Twitter has really been the best way to follow me on this tour, by the way), and I saw that half of it was about some PEN festival in New York and I was like oh man, am I happy I’m about to see HOLE at SXSW rather than a bunch of writers jerk themselves off about their work in a conference room somewhere in midtown. No offense to PEN and their fine festivals, the kind of writer who might speak on a fancy panel, conference rooms, or midtown Manhattan, but I’m just pretty glad I got out of town for a while. And that I got to see Hole. HOLE.
OK, here’s the deal. It wasn’t a great rock show. It was completely fascinating and we were all rooting for her to not fuck up and she didn’t, so that was good. But that doesn’t make it a great rock show. It makes it only OK. Her voice went halfway through the show. When she smiles it’s really nice. She cried during one song. She talked about fucking a bunch. There were two or three songs where she kicked ass, and we were so happy. There was also a teleprompter. Mischa Barton was in the balcony, Margaret Cho was onstage, and they both looked super high. Way to go, ladies. We just wanted a rock show. Courtney made references to Bret Michaels and Perez Hilton which were silly and undignified and not necessary. We don’t care about these people. We just want you to rock. We don’t care who you know. We kind of already know who you know. We just want you to rock.
If I were Courtney I’d get a little serious. I know that woman knows a ton about music and I kind of want to hear what she has to say about it all. It seems like she thinks people want a trainwreck. I know she has a pottymouth but also I think she sometimes feels obligated to have one too. I would be totally into her turning into a elder stateswoman of rock. If she could just figure out how to get off the ride she’s been on for years. I’d love a Courtney unplugged storytelling tour. If she could focus for a second about something besides being Crazy Courtney.
But she’s crazy right? She’s too far gone, I guess. Her kid gave up on her, why shouldn’t I? But there’s still part of me that wants it. I want to know what she knows.
