POP MUSIC REVIEW : Lollapalooza: A Revival for Rock’s Divas : A Resurgent O’Connor and an Unruly Love Dominate

GEORGE, Wash. —  Lollapalooza ’95 may feature a cast of hundreds, but it’s chiefly a two-woman affair.

Despite a wide range of performers, including Sonic Youth and Cypress Hill, the focus was on Courtney Love and Sinead O’Connor as the fifth annual alternative-rock extravaganza began a 25-city tour Tuesday before 18,500 fans at the Gorge Amphitheatre here.

Both singers responded with winning, even magnetic performances--O’Connor charming the audience with grace and command, and Love challenging it with typical brashness and force.

That’s fortunate for these acclaimed singer-songwriters, because the tour is viewed by many in the pop industry as a crucial test for both.

It isn’t that Love and O’Connor are pitted against each other, battle-of-the-bands style. But they are seen by many as struggling against potentially career-threatening perceptions.

Where most strong and gifted women in rock are compared to bold, original figures such as Patti Smith and Chrissie Hynde, Love and O’Connor are portrayed in the media as so explosive and confrontational that they come across to some as King Kong and Godzilla.

O’Connor’s challenge on her first U.S. tour in five years is, in fact, to revive a career that was partially derailed by such actions as tearing up the Pope’s photograph on national television and snubbing the U.S. national anthem at one of her concerts.

Following the 1992 photo incident on “Saturday Night Live,” the Irish performer was roundly booed during a guest appearance at a Bob Dylan tribute concert in New York, and her last two albums fell far short commercially of “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got,” the 1990 hit that established her as the most heralded pop-rock newcomer in years.

With Love and her band, Hole, the question is whether she has the emotional stability and strength to handle a full-scale tour.

Whether lashing out on on-line services or being rushed to the hospital after reportedly taking prescription drugs, Kurt Cobain’s widow tends to keep the pop world holding its breath--or, perhaps, simply shaking its head.

Tuesday’s main stage music began at 1 p.m. with sets by ska revivalists the Mighty MightyBosstones and hard-edged rock band the Jesus Lizard: uninvolving and anonymous, respectively.

Beck, whose folk, rock, blues and rap influences are so varied that he is a virtual music festival himself, followed with his four-piece band and held the crowd’s attention for a while. But the momentum sagged and ultimately evaporated as the group closed with a punchless symphony of feedback.

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Between the afternoon heat and the drowsiness of the opening acts, the fans seemed on the edge of slumber by the time O’Connor took the stage with her five-piece band around 4 p.m.

But the singer, her dark hair now grown out and worn in a short pixie cut, brought them to order as surely as a judge’s gavel as she walked on stage confidently, wearing a white sweater and full-length gray skirt.

Singing with captivating purity and range, O’Connor held the audience’s attention with a bold selection of songs that sidestepped such old hit material as her version of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” in favor of the more personal tales about Ireland, children and comfort from last year’s “Universal Mother.”

The highlights were a pair of soft, prayer-like anthems, including a lovely, a cappella arrangement of “In This Heart” in which a different band member joined her on each chorus.

Preceding Hole, Pavement played well but connected only slightly with the crowd, which was impatient for the energy that L.A. rappers Cypress Hill delivered next in their wildly received set.

Though you’d think the fans in the mosh pit would have been exhausted after Cypress Hill, they sprang right back into action as Love set an immediate, spirited tone. Where O’Connor’s first word to the crowd had been a gentle “Hello,” Love screamed, “F--- you!”

Wearing the briefest of baby-doll dresses, she planted her left leg defiantly on a stage monitor and led the band (augmented on some songs by a cellist) through some of the blistering songs that have made her the most acclaimed woman in rock since, well, O’Connor.

Talking constantly to the crowd between such trademark numbers as “Miss World” and “Doll Parts,” Love approached the concert much like a prizefighter--always looking for an opening to make the moment come alive for herself and the audience.

She found it Tuesday in the chaotic swirl of the mosh pit in front of the stage.

“Stop mauling that poor girl or I’ll kick your ass,” she shouted at some fans in the pit who were apparently shoving a female fan around. Love then invited the girl (and eventually two dozen more female fans) to watch from the safety of the stage.

At the end of the set, Love joined hands with her guests in an apparent sisterhood salute and walked to the edge of the stage with the women (and a couple of males who had jumped on stage amid the confusion) for what appeared to be a good-natured curtain call.

But Love inspired gasps from the crowd as she suddenly leaped toward the pit, pulling some of the women with her. Her momentum, however, didn’t carry her much past the row of security guards herself, and she was soon lifted back on stage.

Sonic Youth followed with a strong set, demonstrating why the guitar-dominated quartet has been looked upon for a decade as a symbol of integrity and excellence in rock--though much of the exhausted crowd was headed for home by the time the New York band finished.

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As usual, Lollapalooza is a delicate balance between big business and underground consciousness. Though aiming for a ‘60s-style sense of generational community, last year’s 33-city tour grossed $26.7 million--more than the box-office receipts of such mainstream cash cows as Billy Joel, Jimmy Buffett and Phil Collins.

Lollapalooza co-founder Perry Farrell and his brain trust have expanded the festival’s buffet of music, arts-related stimuli and ethnic food and crafts booths to include a cinema tent and a new performance area where the anything-goes mix of comedy and music is a break from the formality of the two main music stages.

The Gorge Amphitheatre, which is owned by MCA Concerts, also added to the festive nature of the event. Located about 160 miles east of Seattle on a bluff almost 1,000 feet above the Columbia River, it is surely one of the nation’s loveliest--and most remote--concert venues.

In the end, however, most fans will remember the start of Lollapalooza ’95 as the night O’Connor proved she was back . . . and Love showed she is still out there.

* Lollapalooza ’95 plays Aug. 14-15 at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, 8800 Irvine Center Drive, Irvine, 2 p.m. Aug. 14 sold out, Aug. 15 $27.50. (714) 855-4515 .