Who knew she had a cuddly side?

SAN DIEGO â€”  How long can you call something a comeback before you have to just call it quits?

That was the question shadowing Courtney Love on Sunday as she kicked off yet another comeback tour in a musical career that in recent years has known more heartache and humiliation than anything approaching success.

The volatile singer-songwriter’s professional life has been like a series of old Saturday afternoon movie cliffhangers, in which the terrified heroine is left tied to the tracks as the train speeds her way.

In Love’s case, the “train� was her own self-destructiveness, and we’ve been waiting at least six years to find out how the story is going to turn out.

She’s already so distanced from her absorbing work with the rock band Hole in the ‘90s that a new generation of fans knows her primarily through her arrest record.

Just last week she pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in New York for hitting a fan on the head with a microphone stand during a concert in March. She still faces an assault charge in California for allegedly attacking a woman with a liquor bottle.

As she stood on stage Sunday at the 1,500-capacity 4th & B club downtown, Love surely knew she was again on trial. The room was only about half-filled, a reminder that her fan base has dwindled considerably since Hole’s “Live Through This� was voted the best album of 1994 in a poll of the nation’s pop critics.

But Love delivered a gutsy performance that was so warm at times that it almost felt cuddly.

“Did you miss me?� Love sang teasingly in the evening’s opening song, “Mono.� The number, from her recent “America’s Sweetheart� album, is, among other things, about her yearning for music that has the honesty and passion she associates with the records of her youth -- or maybe even the music she made with Hole. Later in the tune, she pleads, “I need to hear one thing that’s divine.�

“Live Through This� was a raw, compelling look at dark obsessions and shattered ideals -- a handbook for survival that acknowledged some of Love’s personal demons while also striking out at the betrayals that can sap confidence and faith.

The album’s fierce punk spirit carried a liberating ring for women in rock. While the artful commentary of Patti Smith had already demonstrated that women could stand alongside the men, Love wanted to play with the boys.

She wanted to be as loud, crude, rude, daring, irresponsible and inspiring as her spirit allowed. Desperate to mesmerize audiences, she sometimes pushed herself on stage to unhealthy extremes. Long before she flashed her breasts at David Letterman on television, she was flashing them onstage.

The first sign that Love was on her best behavior Sunday was that she walked onstage in a modest black sweater and skirt. She was also holding a soda can, not a liquor bottle. None of the fans near the front of the stage had to worry about a swinging microphone stand.

These devoted fans were warm, supportive and eager to see her career soar once again. They cheered and sang along with the new songs from “America’s Sweetheart� and such older tunes as the tenacious “Violet� and the yearning, melodic “Malibu.�

Outside the club, however, the rock world is much more divided. Even during her most acclaimed period, lots of fans suspected her motives. Some felt she was more interested in being a celebrity than an artist. Detractors accused her of using her late husband, Kurt Cobain, to further her career, and they huffed and puffed when she started acting in movies and hanging out with the Hollywood crowd.

That’s why these concert dates are so important if Love is going to be taken seriously in rock again. Measured against “Live Through This� and Hole’s more tuneful but equally insightful and vulnerable “Celebrity Skin� from 1998, “America’s Sweetheart� feels fuzzy and a bit hollow. Most of the songs sound like first-draft impulses rather than thoughtful observations.

It figured that the “Sweetheart� songs would dampen things Sunday, but they carried even less power than on record because Love’s vocals and her band’s playing felt rote. It may have been opening-night nerves, but everyone has to loosen up as Love tests the waters in this short California tour.

The musicians’ playing melded politely, rather than slashing or colliding in a way that would give the songs character and edginess.

When Love invited a female fan to join her on stage during a new song near the end of the hourlong set, the fan sang a line so forcefully that it seemed to jump-start Love. Returning for the encore, Love continued to show that increased confidence and dynamics, catching everyone off-guard with a surprisingly spirited rendition of the old folk song “House of the Rising Sun.�

No one seemed more thrilled than Love herself.

As she walked off stage, she stopped and waved sweetly to the audience. It was a disarming gesture from a woman who must realize she’s lucky to be getting another chance.

For all the rough exteriors of her music and bratty edges of her demeanor, vulnerability has been at the emotional center of her art.

Though she didn’t include it in Sunday’s set, there’s a song on “America’s Sweetheart� that speaks to that vulnerability.

In “Hold On to Me,� she sings: “Hey, this life is never fair / The angels that you need are never there / But sometimes he comes to me / In the dead of winter, dead of night / He’s all that I can see.�

After years of being tough on stage, Love may have learned from the affection of the true believers in this half-filled club that her future lies in being a bit more tender. That’s a comeback that might just stick.