Courtney Love's New Poison: Ensure

TOUGH Love Photo: NickyDigital.com

A svelte and relatively tame Courtney Love played her first New York show in ages last night at Cheeky Bastard's weekly Hiro Ballroom gig in Manhattan. No one was hit with a mic stand. Love did not stage dive (though there was one failed attempt by her to climb up onto her amp).

The hour-plus performance included songs from her forthcoming album Nobody's Daughter, a wardrobe change—into a onesie-like getup she claimed Marc Jacobs designed for her—and a call from a surprisingly sober Love to a stagehand not for a shot of whiskey or beer but for a bottle of Ensure. "It's what anorexics drink," Love quipped. The preferred concoction of nannas everywhere was fitting since, in Love's words, she was "old enough to be everyone in the band's mother."

Click here for more shots of the show ...