Courtney Love Joins Smashing Pumpkins at ‘Anniversary’ Show
Billy Corgan and Courtney Love — onetime lovers and longtime antagonists — were reunited onstage in Holmdel, N.J., last night, as Love joined Corgan’s band the Smashing Pumpkins for three songs during a special "30th Anniversary" concert.
Love lent her voice to two songs from her band Hole’s 1998 album Celebrity Skin — the title track and “Malibu” (both songs she co-wrote with Corgan) — and stuck around to sing on the Pumpkins’ hit “Bullet With Butterfly Wings.”
Love’s appearance capped a guest-heavy show in which Corgan and company shared the stage with the Deftones’ Chino Moreno, the Killers’ Dave Keuning and Mark Stoermer, New Order’s Peter Hook and Sugar Ray’s Mark McGrath, who led the band (and the crowd) in a run through his band’s hit, “Fly,” as well as a cover of Judas Priest’s “Breaking the Law.”
The onstage pairing between Corgan and Love was a highlight of the evening, and not so long ago would have been unthinkable. The two dated before Love met Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain (whom she eventually married), and Corgan collaborated with Love on five songs on Celebrity Skin and four on Hole’s 2010 album Nobody’s Daughter. Questions over credit and use of certain songs aggravated tensions in an already intense relationship between the two.
Both claim to have reconciled several years back, which one can assume makes events like their onstage collaboration possible.