Impressive Jeff Buckley
Studio Brussel presenter Chantal Pattyn appeared punctually and opened the second stage of Torhout/Werchter with a glowing smile. It was Jeff Buckley's honor to be the first to fill in the meaning of this side stage: show the talent that's not yet ripe for the big stage. It is indeed doubtful whether Buckley's music works on a larger scale. But that the man has talent, that much is certain. He came on and started with something that resembled an Arab's voice with that of Bono accompanied by heavy chopping guitars. Not only the voice of this beautiful, young singer turned out to be surprisingly varied, the song structures were also, if you can still call it songs. Within one and the same song Buckley manages to go very soft and very hard and to do this very convincingly. Buckley wants to tell something through his music. With his eyes closed he brought that message. His companions were only performers in this, the script in which Buckley uses his text. Downright impressive was what Buckley did with Kick Out the Jams of the long forgotten MC5. The audience that had discovered the stage in the meantime knew: there's something going on here and, rightly so, nestled on this part of the meadow.
