Agony and Energy

 The Age: February 29, 1996

Jeff Buckley may not wish to be adored, but try telling that to Tuesday night's crowd, writes Wendy Tuohy.

  PERHAPS BECAUSE commercial radio has elevated Jeff Buckley to the status of Rock God since he came here last year, perhaps because the fans who flock to him-in bigger venues-on this tour seem groupie-like, this otherworldly artist has had less than favorable reviews this time.

  Sitting in the Palais Theatre, being transported, riven, lifted and dashed by a voice as shimmeringly ethereal as the notes that pour off a saw blade when it's played with a violin bow, it was hard to understand how anyone who hears Jeff Buckley could be anything but moved.

  A fragile figure with a boy's white arms told us wrenching stories of loss, pain and aching. He used a musical language so beautiful-and sang at times in a voice as rich but tortured as a male Nina Simone-that the pain became a thing of beauty.

  We do not know the exact origins of Jeff Buckley's intensity, or what causes the compressed tension that sometimes makes him rigid at the microphone, but the "lots of bad things" he speaks about to journalists, the "lots of irreparable damage...the agony of learning all over again" certainly came through in his coiled-spring stage presence.

  The musical influence of his father, the revered 1960s folk artist and poet, Tim Buckley, who met his eight-year-old son only once before his death by overdose, was also felt. Buckley modulated the emotional and musical tenor of the evening with waves of sound from gentle finger-strummed riffs to crashing explosions of guitar noise.

  Those who saw Buckley here last August say he has gained stage confidence and become more rockstarlike since then. This is not surprising since he has become used to larger audiences by playing many of the big European music festivals.

  It did not matter that this 28-year-old had nothing new on show. With the exception of the medley he did around Bob Dylan's Just Like a Woman as an encore, and a cover of MC5's Kick Out the Jams, the material Buckley and his band played was from their lauded release of 1994, Grace. The sensation of being swept up by waves of Jeff Buckley's energy made the night new.

  Contrary to his stated wish: "I do not want to be adored," Buckley wrote his name on the hearts of the people who saw him on Tuesday night.

Jeff Bukley plays the Palais Theatre again tonight.