Jeff Buckley the new romantic

By Yves Berton

Submitted by Shelly Happart

Last February, this romantic young man had made a real hit at the Bataclan.

  Without a doubt the rock revelation of the year. Jeff Buckley, a twenty-seven year old Californian who lives on the Lower East Side, New York's marginalized neighborhood, never ceases to bewitch. His songs mix folk, rock and blues with the energy of Led Zeppelin and plunge us into the depths of the soul. His crazy James Dean look is even more fascinating. We understand better why his performance at the Bataclan, last February, was a real madness. The public took up with him "Je n'en connais pas la fin," a song inspired by the famous title of Edith Piaf. Another choice piece that night was his cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah". Given the demand, a Zenith had been added but the production preferred to fall back on two Olympia, tonight and tomorrow, a venue that better fits Buckley's intimate universe.

  Son of a rock star of the sixties, Tim Buckley, who died of an overdose, Jeff is not a pale copy of his father, as Ziggy Marley can be. His father, Jeff, never knew him, having been abandoned at birth. This probably explains why his songs are those of a burnt-out man. "Grace", the title track of his first album released on Columbia/Sony, soon to be a gold record (already 95,000 copies), emphasizes that the grace one encounters before love is the same as that which occurs before death. If Jeff Buckley had lived in the XIXe century, he would have been a friend of Beaudelaire or Verlaine...

Jeff Buckley, tonight and tomorrow night at 8pm, at the Olympia, 28 boulevard des Capucines, Paris IXe. Seats: 157 F. Tel (1) 47.42.25.49.