 - - - - - - - - - - - - - WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20TH, 1999, ENMORE THEATRE, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA By Sharee First of all, Hole came onstage about 15-20 minutes late, purposely or not I don’t know, so we were all getting really hyped by the time Courtney came onstage wearing (surprise, surprise) her leather hipster pants (which she later commented on by saying they were an exlusive part of the Elle McPherson line) and a gorgeous silver/green halter top with only one strap. Which reminds me, the top was split up one side, which made it able for all of us in the mosh to see that Clove had really bad bruising on her ribs, I mean really bad, dark brown bruising. That must’ve hurt. Melissa wore a sexy long black skirt with a split going up the front of her left thigh, were you could see she was wearing fishnet stockings and her trade mark knee-high boots. Her top looked navy blue from where I was standing, and, well she doesn’t look anorexic in real life like she does in some pictures. She’s so gorgeous. Eric was wearing a not-too-exciting black shirt and pant outfit, but after the encore he came out in a hot black see-though shirt. Anyway, when Courtney began playing the chords for ‘Violet’ and sang ‘and the sky was made of amethyst’ it was as if the whole room was being pumped full of adrenaline cause the entire theatre just went besurqe! No matter what anyone says about the band selling out or them becoming pure pop, they proved to me and no doubt the entire audience that their fire and rage was still their and raring to go. Personally I can’t think of a better song to begin with, and as Courtney sings ‘and the sky was all fucking VIOLET’, it fucking does nothing but blow you away. Second up was ‘Awful’ sang brilliantly mind you, and of course it got the whole room ‘oohing and aahing’ just like the majority of songs on CS. As this song was finished Courtney went into a one-verse solo of ‘Pale Blue Eyes’, which she softly sung, it sounded so different compared to how it appeared on the ‘Ask For It’ EP. Unfortnately from this point on I can’t remember the exact line up of songs they played, but I’m pretty sure up next came ‘Reasons To Be Beautiful’. Definitely a crowd pleaser, especially for all the 12 year olds struggling to keep their heads above the ocean of people around them in the mosh. By this time Courtney had hand picked about seven or eight lucky girls from the front of the mosh to sit onstage with the band for the entire concert, then she made us all laugh by saying to the girls, ‘no, no, sit back there I don’t wanna see you’. ‘Slut kiss girls/won’t you promise her smack/is she pretty on the inside/is she pretty FROM THE BACK’. This song, my god, I read that they played it in the States but I wasn’t sure if they were gonna play it here but they did! This is my absolute favourite song from ‘POTI’, along with ‘Sassy’ of course. This song is like an anthem among Hole fans that stands out like no other. Sure you’ve got Violet and Miss World, but Pretty On The Inside? Definitely a crowd pleaser. ‘Miss World’. What can I say? Is their anyone out there who doesn’t like this song? To say it gave me goosebumps would be an understatement, and, just as with the ‘Live Through This’ tour in 1994/95 she rearranged the lyrics to suit her mood. As she sang ‘you watched me break/you watched me burn/no one was listening my friends’ it brought back so many memories, you know when a particular song brings on flash backs from ages ago? Anyway, it went off, big-time. Stupid me can’t exactly remember when this next part actually happened, but I’m absolutely sure I’m never going to forget it! The most delicious looking guy I’ve ever seen in my life, known to all as Twiggy Ramirez, just happened to walk onstage and strike up a conversation with Courtney. As any true Marilyn Manson fanatic would do I of course went fashionably ballistic at the sight of such perfection. Plus the fact that I’d been standing in the middle of Sydney for 6 hours in pouring rain all day just so the band could sign a CD for me (all to no avail because the band left when I had five minutes to go until it was my turn) it all got a bit much. AIYW The next song, to Courtney’s amazement, was ‘Plump’, which Eric shamefully admitted to putting on the set list. Courtney didn’t want to play this song at all, complaining that ’this song makes me so mad, and I wanna be happy’. At this point in time no one knew what song they were talking about, so Courtney asked us what we wanted to hear and put the mike towards us, the audience. This one girl said ‘Boys on the Radio’, while practically everyone of us in the mosh wanted to hear ‘Gutless’, then Courtney said ‘No!!! No Gutless, puh-lease’. Hole then broke into ‘Malibu’, which was followed by ‘Boys On The Radio’. When that was done with she again asked us what WE wanted to hear. Everyone still wanted ‘Gutless’ which is when she said, ‘What about id, ‘What about Drag?’ Hardly anyone knew what ‘Drag’ was though. ‘Well? Do you wanna hear a song that me and Melissa wrote or what? Or should we play both songs (‘Plump’ and ‘Drag’) and make this an extra long show?’ Of course we all wanted the latter, which is when they broke into ‘Plump’, and Courtney was right about the song making her mad because when the song was finished she just stood there strumming for about a minute vil look on her face. Then came ‘Drag’ which is definitely one of the best songs Hole have written lately, I just wanna know why it didn’t make it to the album? It really should be on there. Next up (I think) was ‘Use Once and Destroy’, and I have to say that Samantha Maloney, Hole’s stand in drummer, was amazing on this track. As Courtney screamed ‘I went down for the remains/sort through all your blurs and stains’ everyone knew somehow she was directly reffering to, well, I’m sure I don’t have to spell it out. ‘I am, doll eyes,’ If this couldn’t get the crowd singing then nothing could. Apparently the lighters were being swayed etc the full bit. ‘K stands/for knife/for the rest/OF YOUR LIVES’. This sounded better live, in my opinion anyway, it was a lot harder, just the way I like it. I also remember Courtney replacing her guitar with a tamborine on a number of songs. I read somewhere that she wanted a new guitarist so she wouldn’t have to play the guitar at all. But then I also thought that the whole reason Courtney became a ‘rock star’ is because of the power she feels while playing guitar??? Go figure. Somewhere along the line they played ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’, the Bob Dylan cover that appears on the Malibu single. I’m not really fond of this song although it was played really, really well. Then came the ever so predictable ‘show us your tits’ saga that you can bet on when going to see Hole. Courtney wouldn’t stop squeezing and caressing herself which only added to the crowds anxiousness. She is such a goddamn tease! Courtney then came to say 'I’ll only show you guys my tits if Melissa says fuck onstage’. Of course this led to screams and please for the ‘innocent’ Melissa to say the word. Of course she wouldn’t. She said something along the lines of, ‘I’ll do fuck but I won’t say fuck’, with Courtney pleading with her, ‘Come on Melissa just say it’ ‘No, I’ll say it in my room alone but not out here’ so we basically didn’t see any more of Clove’s celebrity skin than what was on offer. Then came everybody’s current favourite; Celebrity Skin. This really goes off live, that’s all I can say. After the 10 minute encore Courtney and Eric came out alone, with Courtney wearing what l can only describe as a cross between a seventies swimsuit disaster and something a trapeez artist in a circus would wear get my drift? Probably not. Anyway, despite the bad fashion sense, Eric and Courtney made a lot of us weep as they performed an acoustic version of ‘Northern Star’. It was so beutiful, so loud in parts and Courtney, so full of emotion. As ‘Northern Star’ finished Melissa and Samantha were welcomed back onstage and they began the Guns & Roses classic ‘Paradise City’. This got everyone singing along, but according to my friend Sam, they got some of it wrong or something. I wouldn’t know because I don’t own a single Gunners item, but according to him they did stuff up. Then, just as I was about to collapse in a heap from exhaustion and most probably dehydration, ‘She Walks On Me’ began. I couldn’t resist this one so we all went crazy in the mosh, screaming ‘KITTY, KITTY, PLEASE COME HERE/NO DON’T YOU TOUCH ME DON’T YOU DARE’ which reminds me, Courtney changed the lyrics on this song aswell. ‘Where it usually says, ‘hold you close like we both died, my ever present suicide’ she changed it to ‘YOUR ever present suicide’, naturally. This was sooo good, you can’t beat a little bit of ‘Live Through This’. At the end of ‘She Walks On Me’ became a chorus of ‘Good Sister/Bad Sister’ where Courtney just strummed her guitar and sang ‘I’ll be the biggest star/In your sky’ over and over again along with ’I’ll be the biggest dick that you ever had, the biggest DICK, the biggest DICK’ fading slowly meaning the end of the show. All I can say to round this up is that this is the best concert I have had the pleasure of seeing in my life, and I’ve seen a few. My only regret is that I only bought tickets for two out of Hole’s five Sydney shows, but I guess there’s always next time. If you haven’t seen Hole live before it is a must for everyone, Hole fan or not. Oh, and one last thing, I wouldn’t dare wear a Nirvana/Kurt shirt to a Hole concert because Courtney will spot you with out a doubt, and believe me, you don’t want to be seen. Courtney ripped shit out of this guy for booing her onstage, she totally kicked his ass without touching him, and my god, did he shut up. - - - - - - - - - - - - - |