NME, April 2, 1994
By Keith Cameron.
Contributed by Sai
LONDON
BORDERLINE
Contributed by Sai
LONDON
BORDERLINE
"I NEED a Guinness," murmurs Jeff Buckley, after completing one of his many audacious sorties on the collective heartstring this evening. "And I really mean that." One further outbreak of massed nail-chomping later, a glass of the black gold is dutifully placed at Jeff's feet.
Though he might not quite have the audience eating out of his hands to be drinking out of their pockets-especially at West End prices-is a considerable feat nonetheless. The only surprise is that Jeff Buckley didn't just spirit the stuff out of the barrel, into the glass and onto the stage himself. For in virtually every other department, the Son Of Tim serves warning that the deified status his father achieved in death already belongs to him in this vividly alive life.
Perhaps the ultimate confirmation of Buckley Jr's talent is that relatively soon people will have given up talking about him in reference to pater. Without doubt the voices share many qualities, chiefly the angel wings that lend their flights through all manner of octaval impropriety a quite effortless ease. Yet while Tim had that ghostly quaver hinting at the darkness to come even in his earliest work, Jeff's is as a far more streetwise instrument; gorgeous, exquisitely expressive but definitely of this world.
That said, his opening gambit tonight would have done dad proud: two minutes or so of unaccompanied free-form moaning that wrench the palms immediately into perspiration overdrive. Has this hippy got his shit together, we wonder as visions of all those hours never spent in jazz sellers marveling at the sheer self-indulgence of the human larynx fog the brain. But for the remainder of this session, at least, Jeff plays it straight, allowing us to marvel at the sheer drama wrought by one man, his electric guitar, and a bunch of hymnal treatises on people's seemingly endless potential for f-ing up.
A scruffy-smart troubadour in the classic freewheelin' mould, the marketing department must have freaked when Jeff B appeared on its agenda. His blend of West Coast idealism and East Side hard knocks suss lends the humanist polemic of 'Eternal Life' ("There's no time for hatred/Only questions") genuine pathos light years removed from the genre's usual trite platitudes. And when the boy picks up Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" and wrings out every last sob, you're at a loss to fathom such wisdom from such tender years.
That Guinness goes down in one, too. Pure genius would appear to get it just about right.
Though he might not quite have the audience eating out of his hands to be drinking out of their pockets-especially at West End prices-is a considerable feat nonetheless. The only surprise is that Jeff Buckley didn't just spirit the stuff out of the barrel, into the glass and onto the stage himself. For in virtually every other department, the Son Of Tim serves warning that the deified status his father achieved in death already belongs to him in this vividly alive life.
Perhaps the ultimate confirmation of Buckley Jr's talent is that relatively soon people will have given up talking about him in reference to pater. Without doubt the voices share many qualities, chiefly the angel wings that lend their flights through all manner of octaval impropriety a quite effortless ease. Yet while Tim had that ghostly quaver hinting at the darkness to come even in his earliest work, Jeff's is as a far more streetwise instrument; gorgeous, exquisitely expressive but definitely of this world.
That said, his opening gambit tonight would have done dad proud: two minutes or so of unaccompanied free-form moaning that wrench the palms immediately into perspiration overdrive. Has this hippy got his shit together, we wonder as visions of all those hours never spent in jazz sellers marveling at the sheer self-indulgence of the human larynx fog the brain. But for the remainder of this session, at least, Jeff plays it straight, allowing us to marvel at the sheer drama wrought by one man, his electric guitar, and a bunch of hymnal treatises on people's seemingly endless potential for f-ing up.
A scruffy-smart troubadour in the classic freewheelin' mould, the marketing department must have freaked when Jeff B appeared on its agenda. His blend of West Coast idealism and East Side hard knocks suss lends the humanist polemic of 'Eternal Life' ("There's no time for hatred/Only questions") genuine pathos light years removed from the genre's usual trite platitudes. And when the boy picks up Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" and wrings out every last sob, you're at a loss to fathom such wisdom from such tender years.
That Guinness goes down in one, too. Pure genius would appear to get it just about right.
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