When Tom and I got to Liberty Lunch on Tuesday night, it was 8:15 and the doors hadn't been opened yet. There was, however, a line of people all the way around the block, starting at those closed doors. We waited in line for about 30 minutes as little by little, people were let in. We heard Maggie Estep start right before we reached the door. We weaseled our way to the front near the stage, and listened to Maggie's performance. She's one cool gal, lemme tell ya.

Veruca Salt really really rocked. I think I'm probably going to get their album pretty damned soon. Almost every song appealed to me in some way. After that, we waited. It took quite a long time for the roadies to set up for Hole. There were dolls to place strategically all over the stage (later, Courtney would toss most of them to girls in the audience), and the guitars were tested again and again.

Finally the band appeared. First Eric, then Patty, then Courtney and Melissa. They played a great set (as described in the reviews I posted earlier), and left the stage. It was obvious that the crowd was expected to cheer for an encore, as the stage remained dim and the houselights were not turned on. Some mild cheering went on, and finally, some guy came out from backstage and said, "We can ALMOST hear you back there." This, of course, brought forth louder screaming, and the band appeared with trays of vegetables to throw at us. It was interesting. I think I got hit with a radish.

Then the infamous stage dive attempt was made. It was a little scary, watching her step off the stage. There was a barrier between the crowd and the stage, with about 3 feet between the crowd and the drop off. She stepped down, then stepped up onto the barrier, and tried to actually climb atop the crowd. It wasn't a simple matter of just falling back on the people. It would have scared me to death. There were so many hands grabbing at her, trying to pull her up, screaming "COURTNEY!!" It was frightening. All of a sudden, you could see her, bent over the crowd... still standing on the barrier, shaking her head, "NO." Then the bouncers had her cradled like a baby and set her back on the stage.

That's when she lit into us.

After she left the stage with the guitars leaned up against the amps, Eric came back and turned everything off. He was holding a black stick with a plastic skull head on it that had been attached to a doll body earlier. He walked off the stage and threw it over his shoulder as he disappeared.

Then the house lights came on. It was weird. We (the audience) had just been royally cussed out. We left the building, then decided to go around to the back to see if she might appear to sign autographs.

There were about 30 people waiting for another glimpse of her. One girl held a dozen roses wrapped in green tissue paper. Lots of girls were holding dolls that Courtney had thrown into the audience. Tom and I waited for about 45 minutes with the rest of the crowd before some of the band members started hanging around. No one seemed interested in interacting with Eric or Patty or Melissa. They hung around for a long time, just talking to the roadies and asking about local hangouts, while the crowd silently continued to wait for Courtney.

Then she appeared, escorted by one of the club's "skinhead" bouncers. She looked sad, like she was ready to just get straight to the bus. Instead, she walked right into the middle of the waiting crowd, and we encircled her. It surprised me. She immediately started signing autographs and talking to us. People asked her about Frances, and Sid and Nancy. Tom handed her his ticket to sign, and when she had signed it and handed it back, he said, "Thanks for the show." She looked at him and smiled. I handed her my ticket, and as she signed, I told her, "I read your internet posts." She looked up and found me. She said, "Some of them aren't real. I had a really easy password, like, "Kurt," and some posts were fake." I asked her, "How can you tell if they're real?" She said, "You can't." I then asked her about the posts that are forwarded her from private email. She said the name of the girl who reposts them (which I can't remember offhand) and I said, "Yeah... are those real?" And she replied, "Yeah... but then someone posted the Dave Grohl one, and that one wasn't real." Then she turned to take a ticket that someone was offering for an autograph, and someone else asked her something, and our discussion was over.

Overall, it was a really interesting experience for me. Courtney Love has this bizarre stage presence. She's warm and funny, but definitely in control of what's going on up there. She impressed the hell out of me. I feel like people who become stars are stars for reasons. Seeing her perform seemed to prove my theory again. She's incredible.