Christian zealots chanting outside? Check. Extra security? Check. Dolled-up fans and excitement in the air? Check and check. But when it became apparent the platinum provocateurs didn't sell out the mid-size arena, questions arose: Are the kids all right? But perhaps, more important, when hhad the Rock Star and the Weirdo lost their grip on the public imagination?

For all the improvements in their songcraft, and the matching makeovers - punk to pop, Goth to glam - the aesthetics of both artists still date to a moment when alt.culture was an unchallenged world unto itself. Their unreconstructed stances may be a vision thing, but the relcutance of both to look the hip-hop nation in the eye is a losing proposition that rock's current cut-up kings - Korn, Limp Bizkit, even the wigga-mocking Offspring - have seen through. But if Courtney and Marilyn dreamed of escaping that truth in this white open space, they slept on the real. Even before Hole hit the stage, someone was shouting "C'mon, Courtney - get at us, dog!" When Manson encored four hours later with Patti Smith's "Rock 'n' Roll Nigger," it seemed more than ever like whishful thinking. He's tried hard to make shaking our ass and being persecuted cool - as if that job hasn't been taken over by hip-hop.

A strange brew of Queen of the Universe and prodigal daughter, Courtney Love wandered onstage in the world's ugliest leather clottes and a top guranteed to drop before the night was through. Guitarist Eric Erlandson, bassist Melissa Auf der Maur, and new drummer Samantha Maloney went for more of an I'm-cool-too-but-don't-take-your-eyes-off-the-star vibe. Then Courtney tried to be alt things to alt people. "Hi," she said. "We're Fugazi. No, we're Sisters of Mercy. Y'know what band we really are? Guns N' Roses. We're Mudhoney, we're f*cking Bikini Kill, we're everything rolled into one."

The crowd might have settled for Hole, the one they knew fromm recoreds, working a set list fiercer and prettier than any around. But the tunes wouldn't rocked harder if you could hear them. Hole's traditionally crappy sound was worse than ever, a maelstrom of indistinct white noise. If Hole still wanted to be a punk band, their audio chaos would be fine, but for the newer, sparklier Hole, it was a distaster. Rock candy like "Heaven Tonight" and "Awful" simply dissolved in the storm. Even set-closer "Celebrity Skin" needed a full dose of just that from Ms. Love just to get the crowd going.

Inevitably it was the punkier gestures that came off, like Love's familiar old howl on "Pretty On the Inside" and "Violet." And as she wound down "Doll Parts," wailing through the rough mix like a teapot in a tempest, she even persuaded us to ache like she ached, if only for a minute. But for every moment of clarity, there was a dive right back into confusion: strobing freakily between haranguing and pandering to the audience; baffling her mates with a cappella bits of "Suzanne" and "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)"; purring and snarling and finally exiting in tears during the encore "Northern Star." Maybe such incoherence was what Courtney meant when she proclaimed this an "anti-show." She didn't hesitate to let us know that she was all about coming "From the heart," and that the showwoman of the evening was actually "that bitch Marilyn."

[I omitted the rest of the review which was about Manson's performance.]