Austin American Statesman: December 8, 1994
By Don McLeese, music
TUESDAY: After Jeff Buckley's previous visits to the Cactus Cafe and Chicago House, his performance at the Electric Lounge was his first at an Austin rock club and first since the release of his amazing Grace album. His opening was a stunner, a sensual tone poem of atmospheric drone and butterfly vocal swoops, offered as extended foreplay for the multiorgasmic crescendos of Mojo Pin. Rapturously romantic, Buckley plainly aspires to a transcendence beyond words, riffs or musical progression.
For all the boundless ambition of his artistry, the material that he borrows on Grace (from Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah to the seductive standard Lilac Wine) is generally stronger than his own. While he's likely to develop more craft in his writing-and push beyond the Zeppelin homage of so much of his band's dynamics-he'll have trouble matching the intensity of these formative performances in the close confines of clubs such as the Electric Lounge.
The slow build and soft sell through which Columbia Records is marketing Buckley suggests a career commitment, a recognition of a popular potential that is as impressive as his vocal range. When he gets where he's going, those who saw an early show such as this will remember it as a blessed event.
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