Pretty on the Inside Tour

In anticipation of the release of Hole's debut studio album, Pretty on the Inside (1991), the group embarked on an international concert tour in promotion of the record. The tour began in July 1991 in Los Angeles.[1] For the first European leg of the tour, Hole was a supporting act for Mudhoney.[2] The band returned to North America in the fall and toured in the United States and Canada before returning to Europe in November 1991.

The band opened for Nirvana at several European dates, including in Ghent, Belgium[3] and Nijmegen, Netherlands.[4] During this time, frontwoman Courtney Love became romantically involved with Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain;[5][6] the two had previously been acquainted in May 1991.[7]

The band returned to the United States in mid-December 1991, appearing as a supporting act for the West Coast tour of The Smashing Pumpkins, supporting their debut album, Gish.[8][9]

Sam Batra of The Guardian wrote of the band's London date in December 1991: "There's no pretending that [Love] is in control. This is the sound of living on the edge and consequently working it out in splurges of furious noise seems to be the only articulation that has any authenticity," adding that "it's as if every flurry of noise unravels itself, breaks down as it struggles within the confines of a genre that is predominately male. Hole will burn themselves out. See them before they lose it willfully."[10] Adam Sweeting, reviewing the University of London Union performance, noted that the band's songs seem to be "teetering on the edge of collapse, [while] Love pouts, whispers, and shrieks...  the volume of the voice is startling."[11] Richard Cromelin of the Los Angeles Times observed of the band's supporting performance at a Los Angeles Smashing Pumpkins concert that the crowd "didn’t take to Courtney Love’s powerful howls of anguish."[9] At the end of the show, Love "ordered the band to a halt and hurled her guitar to the ground," after which guitarist Eric Erlandson demolished his guitar by smashing it against the floor.[9]

Supporting

• Hi Dummy
• Drag

Supported

• Buffalo Tom[12]
• Mudhoney (August 9–22, 1991 dates)[2]
• Nirvana
• The Smashing Pumpkins (December 16–22, 1991 dates)

• Crawford, Anwen (2014). Hole's Live Through This. 33 1/3. New York: Bloomsbury USA. ISBN 978-1-623-56377-6. OCLC 883749105.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Prato, Greg (2010). Grunge Is Dead: The Oral History of Seattle Rock Music. Toronto: ECW Press. ISBN 978-1-554-90347-4.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• True, Everett (2006). Nirvana: The Biography. London: Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-306-81554-6.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)