Hole @ O2 Academy, Glasgow, 3 May

From America’s Sweetheart to Nobody's Daughter, Courtney Love shouldn’t need Billy Corgan’s advice to know that partial band reformations need rehearsals more than nostalgic goodwill to keep them glued together.

With Micko ‘never heard of The Wipers’ Larkin in place of Eric ‘eh, this was my band too’ Erlandson, Love naively assumes that dubious ‘Thamesbeat’ (© NME) indie cred and a knack for grunge-lite that sounds more like the soundtrack to a medieval joust than the primal, heart wrenching calls to arms of yore will save neo-Hole’s night.

Offering a blow-by-blow commentary on the quality of each song, the show turns to narrative theatre as Love relays the thought process behind their latter day output; it took four people to come up with the schmaltzy Samantha, How Good Girls Get Clean was written during a stint in rehab where Love fantasised about emulating PJ Harvey, and Awful was penned with the ‘embarrassment’ of having dated Gavin Rossdale.

A stab at Sympathy For the Devil proves to be a highlight, as do early appearances of Violet and Asking For It – just a flicker of the gig we’d hoped for. But, after a 140 minute set, Love’s the last one standing on stage, her voice shot and arms too tired to play by the time she finishes off Northern Star. The crowd might get its money’s worth for sheer duration alone, but Hole's catalogue wore thin an hour in and this new band is disappointingly limited by the few songs it bothered to learn well. [Bob Morton]