Courtney Love Misses First Hole Comeback Show Over "Squat Riot"

At 11:30 p.m. last night, Proud Galleries in Camden, London, was packed with nearly 1,000 primped and glittered Courtney Love fans. The venue's club night Smash and Grab was set to host a last-minute appearance by the recently resurrected Hole, and at 12:40 a.m. Mairead Nash, one of the promoters (and Love's longtime friend) announced that the singer would arrive shortly and was "stuck" on Park Lane due to a "squat riot" near where Love and her companions were staying.

At 1:00 a.m., Hole's publicist showed an expectant documentary film crew a text message from a member of Love's traveling party saying simply that they wouldn't make it to Proud Galleries because of the riot. Nash claims Love was planning to perform Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and "Celebrity Skin." "It would have been the perfect Valentine's Day gift! I guess we were just unlucky tonight!" Nash told Rolling Stone.

In the studio with Courtney Love: exclusive photos.

Love complained to fans about her dilemma via Twitter, announcing, "There was, as you'll read tomorrow in the London papers, a massive riot tonight outside my house, the cops wouldn't let me leave."

Despite the anti-climactic no-show, crowd stuck around the club, and sweatily danced to pop and indie hits for hours. Hole are set to play a sold out show at the O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire in London on February 17th, which is being heralded as the band's first official comeback gig.

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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