Photo: Thanira Rates
Courtney's girls are out in force before the second of this behemoth's London dates. Flurrying around the nearby Westfield before the gig, there are perhaps few better locales for the plastic glamour that Love's music so frequently lampoons.
Shepherds Bush Empire feels like a fairly intimate venue to espouse such emotions of counter-culture, particularly with a sparse stage setup of just a couple of amp stacks. But Love has always been one who lets her personality fill the stage. Opening with new song 'Wedding Day', she seems initially less than focused, appearing in an outfit that enhances her Blanche Dubois rock survivor image. Yet she can still scream down the house down as 'Miss World' prove, and by 'Plump' she's properly settled in and sounding like a wild animal.
New tracks fit well in the lipgloss rock that Love is such a master of. And as she characteristically starts to shed her clothes on stage, songs from her all her incarnations come out, from the blissful 'Malibu' to the biting 'Asking For It' to the visceral 'Violet'.
Rounding off with the desolate 'Northern Sta'r, the resigned 'Under Your Skin' and the aggressive 'Jennifer's Body', its clear that Love is still very much cherished by a particular generation to whom she is the voice of reason in a world that wants them to be both porcelain dolls and whores. For the support she has given them in her music, one gets the feeling that they'll always be around to let Courtney grow old disgracefully.
Courtney Love played:
Wedding Day Miss World (Hole song)
Plump (Hole song)
Gold Dust Woman (Fleetwood Mac cover)
Malibu (Hole song)
Reasons To Be Beautiful (Hole song)
Letter to God (Hole song)
Skinny Little Bitch (Hole song)
Rock Star Violet (Hole song)
Celebrity Skin (Hole song)
Asking For It (Hole song)
You Know My Name
Softer, Softest (Hole song)
Doll Parts (Hole song)
Northern Star (Hole song)
Dying (Hole song)
Awful (Hole song)
Jennifer's Body (Hole song)
Below: 20 exclusive photos of Courtney Love at Shepherds Bush Empire
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