Some musicians will sing almost anywhere to get a new record contract. Rock ‘n’ roll bad girl Courtney Love performed for the president of a major record label in a backstage bathroom Saturday night after her Hollywood Bowl concert was cut short by time constraints, her publicist said on Monday.
The unusual V.I.P. restroom gig was hastily arranged to give the unnamed label executive a chance to hear Love and her new band play a couple of songs they never got to perform for the audience, spokesman Tas Steiner said.
Love, 37, who was opening for rock band Jane’s Addiction, was forced by Hollywood Bowl management to leave the stage midway through her set because of a strict house curfew established under local noise ordinances, Steiner said. The act preceding Love ran longer than expected, which delayed the start of her performance, he said.
A Los Angeles Times review of the show said Love initially vowed not to leave when the plug was pulled on her performance and was literally carried off stage – apparently willingly – by a security guard just before Jane’s Addiction came on.
“Courtney was disappointed,” Steiner said. “She only got to do two of the four new songs that she was planning on singing…. She ended up taking an acoustic guitar with her band into a restroom off stage and singing a few songs for a major label president.”
Love performed all four new songs during a surprise show Friday night at the Ventura Theater in Los Angeles, billed as her first live concert in more than three years, Steiner said.
The four songs appear on a new demo tape that Love has been shopping to record labels as she presses on with her lawsuit against Universal Music Group seeking to end her current recording contract.
For her latest performances, Love was backed by a new band comprising ex-Hole drummer Patty Schemel, former Redd Kross guitarist Steve MacDonald, Jerry Best on bass and Kenny Korade on guitar.
