jESiO: Yes. I heard from a trusted source she was a walking pharmacy. And later, another friend helped her up from a Monticello Avenue faceplant.

No way!

That said, she’s aware of this reputation and lives up to it: the whole “four of you watch the news” bit about people there to watch her trainwreck intead of jam…she’s fucked up but aware, I think.

So, does it matter more or less to you that she was?

Mess it up, you gorgeous hot mess.

Agreed. Did you know she was using a teleprompter? That’s why she couldn’t sing requests like “Jennifer’s Body” or “Teenage Whore”, which she tried to sing… Still, she kicked her pretty boys into submission, smoked and swaggered, and pretty much provided the best raw rock show I’ve seen in a while.

The teleprompter made me a little sad for her… I mean, doing the same songs over and over for years, you should be able to learn them eventually. But at the same time, she was clearly doing exactly what she was put on this earth to be doing, and that’s be a rock star. She found her special purpose, and that’s always inspiring.

It was great. She’s performance art to me–waaay beyond just rock-n-roll, which she’s obviously meant to do. I always liked listening to live Hole versus albums and it solidified why–she’s what you’re drawn to more than the songs themselves. She rocks.

She came out with guns blazing, dong a version of “Sympathy for the Devil.” She promptly started stripping off layers of clothes as the crowd oohhed and ahhed. I was absurdly attracted to her at moment. I loved how much she interacted with the crowd.”I haven’t played in a place this small in years,” she said. “We could all be cousins.” What were some of your favorite things she said between songs?

Primalocity.

“Hep C: I should have it but I don’t.” Haha.

Beyond that, I love how she catches ideas out of the sky like fireflies or something… “If you’re not gay you don’t get the Judy Garland reference,” or a story about how she and Slash, Scott Weiland and Jerry Cantrell wrote a song together–she’s a namedropper and a starfucker, which is super sexy in the forbidden trashy kind of way. She doesn’t pretend nor apologize.

Seeing her perform it’s easy to see why the coolest man of all time would want to be with her.

Aaah, Nirvana.

Were you thinking about Kurt, and Francis Bean, and the movie Kurt and Courtney, and all of her bullshit during the show? In other words, how does The Tragedy of Courtney Love affect the way you hear her music?

Yeah, I think they were mirrors of one another from 92-94 (ish). I don’t think she killed Kurt or any of that b.s. I think if you listen to In Utero and Live Through This back to back, you’ll hear how much they collaborated–on chord progressions, art, lyrics: lots of “baby, milk, utero, body” imagery–as they were having a kid and collaborating and trying/failing to get sober. I hear that era of Hole and Nirvana as very similar–and very very good.

Your thoughts on their “true romance”?

I think that true love sometimes brings you closer to heaven than hell. Love is infinitely fucked up like that.

Okay, Jes, I need to go on a rant for a minute. So I was down kinda near the front, and this one dude started moshing. Nothing violent or out of line. The guy in front of him threatened to kick his ass! Sucker! So the one dude stopped until “Violet” (which she played fantastically), when I promised to help fight the stick in the mud dude should he bow out again… So there was at least one song with moshing.

ANYWAY. My point is that we all want to get better and better acts through the NorVa, which is a venue we are terribly lucky to have. We need to show these acts the love moshing, when we know the words, when we stay off the damn cell phones. What’d you think of the crowd? I heard there were about 800 people here (out of a possible 1500).

Foxy kicked butt too.

The crowd SUCKED. I wanted to be bruised by the end of that show, and I wasn’t even sweaty, which I expected, as the NorVa is anti-mosh a lot of the time and the crowd is anti-culture too. There were a few older people in the back sort of “fake moshing” and you could tell they probably saw Hole or Nirvana in 91 when they were 22 or something, but it’s not enough…..what we (Norfolkians) need to do is really show up to the good shows–like Phoenix or stuff like that.

I really think we need a smaller venue, though…The NorVa’s gonna give good shows to Richmond before Norfolk because they’ll sell out. If we show the NorVa we’re selling out 500 seat venues regularly, those types of bands will stand a better chance next tour of filling up 1500-capacity.

I want to defend Courtney’s fuckedupness as a human being for a second. You looked around the crowd last night and saw a lot of people that are typically considered outcasts. But with queen outcast on stage, we all felt normal. Anyway. Favorite songs? Favorite moments from the show?

I’m not sure this conversation is reflecting just how stellar the show and the night was. A lot of times singers sing lines, and you can tell it’s become rote. But when she sang “I always wanted to die, but you kept me alive, so tell me who I am,” we all felt it. Or at least I did. And what about Foxy Shazam? I said God damn!

Foxy Sha-ZAMMM. Hell yes.

She was not rote. Repeat. NOT rote. The cool thing about listening to Hole songs is you never know when she’s not gonna sing it and instead scream it. For all the outside shit she’s got going on, her place is so clearly the stage and I’m forever-stoked I saw it live…. Still, wish there had been moshing.

I want Foxy to come back on another tour and promote it.

I want Foxy to come back for a visit to my home to live with me forever.