Buckley's haunting songs are mesmerizing

The Star Ledger: February 28, 1994

By Ben Horowitz

  Jeff Buckley, a unique, improvisational electric guitarist and singer, accomplished a number of rare feats during his solo performance on Saturday night at Maxwell's in Hoboken.

  When he played a lilting, chiming version of Edith Piaf's "Je N'en Connais Pas La Fin" (I Don't Know the End), the packed house stood still in utter silence. As tears filled his eyes during the final, dreamy refrain of "oh, mon amour," the song suddenly ended and the only sound before the applause was a young woman's one-word reaction: "Wow."

  It was like that during most of his set. Patrons at Maxwell's and other clubs generally talk and move around while the music is going. But Buckley-an intense eccentric with talent dripping from his fingertips-commanded the audience's complete attention.

  Meanwhile, his slow to mid-tempo, extended numbers were defying categorization.

 During "Grace," for example, his guitar changed from airy, high riffery with jazz-like chord changes to heavy, dissonant licks with a Jimi Hendrix influence. At the time his singing was shifting from falsetto chants to scats to emotional verses.

  Buckley headlined a diverse, eclectic double bill where the opening act was Kate Jacobs, a wonderful country-rock singer songwriter who remains Hoboken's best-kept secret.

  Buckley's boyish, art student-like good looks and troubled presence strongly recalled his father, the late Tim Buckley, best known for the haunting, ethereal hippie anthems on his classic 1967 folk-rock album, Goodbye and Hello.

  The elder Buckley moved to avant-garde jazz before dying from a drug overdose at the age of 28 in 1975.

  Jeff Buckley's voice is about two octaves lower than his father's, but it shares Tim's tortured intensity and experimental tendencies. Ironically, Jeff recalls meeting his father only once after Tim split from his mother in 1966, the year Jeff was born.

  Jeff, under contract with Sony/Columbia Records, could be headed for stardom, but he does seem guaranteed of at least cult status. His debut EP, Live at Sin-e, came out last year and Columbia expects to release his first full-length album in the spring.

  During the Maxwell's show, Jeff Buckley's guitar virtuosity showed a wide gamut of influences: He sounded like Jimmy Page meeting Stanley Jordan on an ominous, cloudy day.

  Buckley opened the show with an extended a capella chanting in a black spiritual style before moving into verses accompanied by jagged, dissonant, jazzy guitar riffs on "The Last Goodbye."

  "Mojo Pin" found Buckley shifting from a jazz take on the English folk-style riffs sometimes favored by Led Zeppelin into heavy, feedback-drenched segments.

  Buckley came closest to his father's sound on "Forget Her," a haunting, melodic, passionate song in a folk-jazz vein.

  Buckley's set peaked with the Piaf song, which came towards the end and was so gorgeous and refined it rendered the final two numbers anticlimactic.

  Buckley was on stage for less than an hour, but that was enough soul-searching intensity for one night. Had the set gone on much longer, it would have been like having an unnecessary, extra portion of a rich but filling delicacy.

Impressive Buckley

Now magazine: February 17, 1994

By Tim Perlich 

Submitted by Karen Pace/Steven Bodrug

Jeff Buckley, opening for Wind May Do Damage, with Rory McLeod, at Ultrasound, Sunday, February 13. Attendance: 175. Tickets: Free. Rating: NNNN (highly entertaining)

  Without fanfare, a disheveled Jeff Buckley, in an oversized new coat, took the Ultrasound stage with a confident New York spring.

  The between-set chatter of the near-capacity crowd slowly dissolved, more out of curiosity than deference. As the spindly singer/songwriter started to twiddle his pick against the strings of his low-slung Telecaster, you could see a moan beginning to take shape in his throat.

  When he finally opened his mouth, a strange, weeping howl leapt out and filled the room. People stopped drinking in mid-gulp. The club became very, very quiet-so quiet that between Buckley's breaths the only sound was the air being sucked through the ceiling vents.

  The great care he took in building his song shapes made it known that this wasn't going to be Tim Buckley's son trying to use his good family name as leverage in promoting his debut "product." Nope. Those sounds belonged solely to Jeff Buckley, and he was excreting them because it's just a natural bodily function.

  His guitar playing technique is surprisingly accomplished. Buckley strikes chords with the self-assurance of a music school grad who no longer feels obliged to drop suspended sevenths and diminished ninths just because he can. The brief time Buckley spent alongside serious slinger Gary Lucas in God's And Monsters clearly served to set him straight.

  Yet you tend to forget he's even strapped in when that voice swoops up in a piercing falsetto, then comes crashing down in waves.

  Buckley is still stretching, still testing his limits. There are moments where he flutters with a grand flourish where a simple whisper might have conveyed so much more. His banter sometimes betrays a certain greeness. You could sense the entire house cringe when he noted with surprise that there was "actual Jamaican-style jerk chicken in Toronto." Fortunately, quickly sensed an impending brush back and acquitted himself admirably by pleading ignorance.

  For an encore, Buckley came back with an impressive 10-minute deconstruction of Sweet Thing. It's no small task to take on a Van Morrison song-they come so thoroughly marked with Van's own personal stamp-but Buckley stylishly delivered it like something he'd written on the cab ride over. Nice one.

Gabe's Oasis review

You Could Do Worse #3: Winter/Spring 1995

By Michael F. Nameche

The Grifters/Jeff Buckley 

Gabe's Oasis-Iowa City, IA

9 July, 1994

  Stories abound about Jeff Buckley. Before his band took the stage, my ear had collected enough second hand information about the man that I felt weighted down. I quickly decided that such rumors belong somewhere other than a live review, but to his credit, I will say that Buckley is widely regarded as "a really nice guy." Having already established the fact that he can hold a crowd a crowd captivated on his own, (check out the 1993 EP, Live at Sin-é, for the indisputable proof), Buckley brought a top-notch band to back him up on this tour. They wisely chose "Mojo Pin" as the opener, and the crowd was in rapt attention from then on.

  Visually, he was mesmerizing; every note he sang registered somewhere on his face with an emotive twitch or ripple. Toothpick legs held in a Joey Ramone stance, Jeff's stage presence burned with quiet intensity. Buckley's voice is truly incredible, an angelic coyote moan. His guitar playing is the perfect companion to that voice, often haunting and very impassioned.

  Buckley belongs among an elite group of guitarists that draw from a wellspring of unexpected emotion, something that everyone can relate to, and on this night it was obvious that the impact of what he was offering to the audience was not lost.

Buckley's music is dreamy, too

The Oregonian, May 10, 1995

By Marty Hughley of The Oregonian staff

  Rumor has it that sales of Jeff Buckley's "Grace" have shot up in the past week, equaling about one-tenth of the total from the album's previous eight months in the racks.

  If you're looking for a reason, you'll probably find it at your grocery checkout. Buckley, the 28-year-old son of the cult hero folkie Tim Buckley, has been annointed as one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People."

  On the one hand, Buckley deserves the attention-for his music as much as for his cheekbones. On the other, fans attracted by his dreamy eyes might be daunted by the challenges of his dreamy yet unpredictable music. As Buckley's Monday night performance at the Aladdin Theatre showed, he's not for the faint of attention span. Buckley has described his work as "part quagmire, part structure" and at times his songs seem to wander in place, as if that quagmire were home. But when he does throw out a good hook, it's enough to pull his performance up to peaks of crystalline beauty and intensity that make it worth waiting through the lulls.

  Standing off to the side of his three backing musicians, the singer-guitarist built his songs from moments of aching delicacy to peaks of bold declaration and paroxysms of noisy release. Covers of Leonard Cohen's bittersweet, elegiac "Hallelujah" and MC5's proto-punk "Kick Out the Jams" served as stylistic bookends.

  In between he traced his own distinct musical vision in a remarkable high tenor informed by Indian microtones, soul melisma and the honey-dripping jazz phrasing of Nina Simone. Sliding in and out of his smooth falsetto, he drew phrases out like streamers, especially on "Lover, You Should Have Come Over," "So Real," and "Grace."

  He gives these romantic reveries a yearning intensity, a dark sensuality that seems to feed off introspection as much as connection. Whereas even the most enlightened rockers seek transcendence in the heights of carnal knowledge, Buckley seems to touch grace in the afterglow.

  After all, it's that kind of sensation that lingers long after this week's People is off the racks.

  The opening act, a Los Angeles quartet called Soul Coughing, made an odd match with Buckley's dusky passions. Using drums, double bass, a sampler keyboard and occasional guitar, the band pressed out a dense blend of hip-hop, funk, rock and jazz as both cushion and launching pad for M. Doughty's oddball hipster raps. A lanky cross between a junior beat poet and a suburban B-boy wannabe, Doughty trades in inspired non sequiturs and vaguely disquieting images of modern social dislocation.

  But the smart use of the sampler for thick textures, colorful riffs, and comic asides, and the rhythm section's balance of warmth and wallop, created a consistent and engaging musical character for Doughty to inhabit.

Garage, Glasgow, review

(Thanks to Gabby for finding!)

Jeff Buckley, Garage, Glasgow

1st March 1995

  ABOUT his voice and singing ability there was no doubt on Monday night: Jeff Buckley is the vocalist as we near fresh twenty-first century vistas. When not insinuating himself into your heart with his plaintive whispers and intimate, little-boy breathiness, Buckley is unrolling vast, creamy swoops or raw-throated, free-form, higher-register shrieks. His voice floats and flutters, feather-light, embodying a complex mix

of pain, pride, and bewilderment. Or it keens and roars with a brutal proto-punk edge.

  The effect on an audience is invariably the same: spine-tingling and awe-inspiring. But as for Jeff Buckley's own songs and his on-stage presentation...well, the jury remains out. His half-dozen or so self-composed songs conform to a samey-sounding formula best summed up as plangent grunge. No wonder then that Monday's genuine show-stoppers were covers.

  His version of Lilac Wine, immortalised by Nina Simone prior to ruination by Elkie Brooks, was eerily astounding. Concluding with Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, Buckley left us rapt, arrested, astonished, sated. Earlier, though, we'd seen him slough his shirt and jacket with an unattractive, self-loving shimmy. His jokey between-song chats were less than necessary too.

  Or, to quote the two Paisley women standing next to me in the sell-out crowd, ''Start the singin' and stop the comedy!'' Otherwise, they kept bellowing ''AC Milan!'' in hormonal appreciation of Jeff's resemblance to Paolo Maldini. Moral? Keep your feet on the ground and your eye on the ball, Jeff.

MM Grace review

August 13, 1994

JEFF BUCKLEY

GRACE

Columbia Col475928

10tks/55 mins/All formats/FP

BECAUSE, after a series of desperate but sadly unsuccessful attempts, he finally realized that it wasn't actually possible to carve lyric poetry into the night sky with a 300-foot flamethrower, Jeff Buckley became a singer.

  "Grace" puts me in mind of what all those bands formed by young Hollywood stars might have sounded like if Hollywood was still HOLLYWOOD, and the square-jawed buggers could boast a single grain of stardust between them-partly due to Jeff's movie-star looks, cool-Californian stage persona, and his habit of talking wonderfully incoherent Utopian stoner babble, but mainly because near enough all these songs are awash with the drama and mystique they first built 25-foot screens for.

  In "Mojo Pin", a choked, meandering vocal weaves through ornate ripples of open-tuned guitar; the title track boasts a chord sequence to cartwheel to. Elsewhere he adds a wonderful feel of doomed, youthful romanticism to covers of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", the "Corpus Christi Carol" and, rather more bizarrely, "Lilac Wine" by perennial "Two Ronnies" guest Elkie Brooks.

  "So Real" is a song of surrender to the raised-vein thunder of The Moment (being, in this case, a night when Jeff and some pretty chum "walked around till the the moon grew full, like a plate, and the wind blew an invocation"). He never stepped on the cracks because he thought he'd hurt his mother.

  "I love you," whispers Jeff. "And I'm afraid to love you." My Bloody Valentine once conveyed that sudden, shocking self-realization with a mesh of bleeding noise; Buckley uses his voice, drawn out like a slow-stretched bolus of heavenly bubblegum (Alright!!!-Ed).

  It's a voice that leaps tall buildings in a single bound, smells of sex and Chanel and never stoops to showboating. Dull people would remark "He could sing his shopping list and it would sound fantastic," (Like, YOU'D never slip it in a review, right?-Ed) which, luckily, legitimizes his more embarrassing stabs at lyrical flash. Indeed, when Jeff sings about girls with green eyes and "butterscotch hair", you don't just picture them, you fancy them rotten (but that's the thing about the Nineties, don't you think? The most alluring quality one can possess is to be fictional). Anyway, "Grace" is a massive, gorgeous record, a record that floats all talk of famous dads out onto the lake on a makeshift raft and leaves it there, and starts where every other singer-songwriter in town says, "Whoa!", pulls up his horse and backs off.

  Because the point at which others are struck dumb with rapture is the moment Jeff Buckley finds his voice, and starts singing.

Jeff Buckley appears on the MM stage on Sunday, August 28

TAYLOR PARKES

MM Sin-e review

April 9, 1994

JEFF BUCKLEY

LIVE AT SIN-E

Big Cat ABB61XCD/4tks/27 mins/MP

FOLKIES-Arran sweaters, sandals and a face that would disgrace even Captain Birds Eye after a night on the lager. Jeff Buckley-young and electric with the kind of fanny-moistening good looks only a Hollywood surgeon could chisel. And he can write a good tune too. Nirvana!

  The highlight of Buckley's two recent London shows was to watch someone actually working for their wage-going for notes which, by rights, they had only an even chance of hitting, yet, in the process, creating an atmosphere which left everybody in the room stunned into silence.

  This four-track mini-LP (fat bastid of a single?) retains the edge an abandon that characterized those shows yet, because it was recorded in a tiny bar in Greenwich Village, loses none of the intimacy that makes JB so special live. Take the lovelorn "Mojo Pin", with its dreamily insistent guitar motif that sounds like it's been beamed in from the edge of sleep or "Eternal Life" which starts off like the most depressed Hendrix reflection then turns inward into a drama-filled confrontation with his own mortality.

  Buckley's version of Van Morrison's "The Way Young Lovers Do" is a fine example of what I was on about earlier, his cavalier approach to creating time-stopping, wonderous moments.

  He actually picks out the individual instruments from the thick mesh of the "Astral Weeks" big-band arrangement and wails, hollers, cries, and croons their parts. Somehow, none of the churning urgency of the original is lost. It could so easily be a grand folly but isn't, simply because of his sheer brass-neck, his intuitive knowledge of what made the song so brilliant in the first place and the small fact that he could sing the wallet out of Pavarotti's back pocket.

  I get blank looks trying to order a vodka in Paris, but I think "Je N'en Connais Pas La Fin" is one of those heart-destroying paeans to lost youth that only the frogs-Edith Piaf and Jacques Brel (I know he's Belgian) knock out so lovingly.

  Jeff Buckley has created one of the albums of the year with just a Telecaster and a voice that sounds like a choirboy singing from the rafters of a whorehouse. Buy it and melt.

MAT SMITH

Roseland review

By Greg Fasolino

Juliana Hatfield

Jeff Buckley

Roseland

  Although technically the special guest on this bill, Jeff Buckley proved to be the one to warrant close attention. Son of legendary late '60s folk/jazz balladeer, Tim Buckley (a tragic 1975 suicide), Buckley the Son thankfully inherited his father's genetic vocal gifts, showcased on his recent debut full-length disc, Grace (not counting an earlier, appetite-whetting CD EP, Live at Sin-E). Indeed, Buckley's throat is a limber, liquid, unfettered instrument, somewhat like a cross between Robert Plant and Marc Bolan-able to turn and bite delicately into a tune with Kate Bush-like agility, and as simultaneously wry and touching as Morrissey or Morrison (Van, that is, his frequent cover choice). At Roseland, shiny-suited Buckley-backed by a sympathetic rhythm section-began small and ended big. An initially poor sound mix that occasionally drowned out Buckley's pipes (especially on a raw cover of the MC5's "Kick Out the Jams") held back the first bunch of numbers, but as the sonic background cleared, the incredible range, control, and power of this man's voice began to work its magic. The centerpiece of Grace, the loping, majestic "The Last Goodbye" really got the electricity flowing, with its alternating moods of delicacy and fat-riffed rock energy, followed by the fragile "Lilac Wine" and Grace's haunting title track. The finale found Buckley alone, accompanying himself on spare, sad guitar chording for an extended, moving version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." He even prompted a joyous murmer from the crowd when he inserted some old Smiths lyrics in the middle of the song.

  Since her beginnings with the Blake Babies, headliner Juliana Hatfield's winsome tunesmithery has held its own, but she simply wasn't strong enough a personality or singer to follow something as stunningly original as Buckley. Hatfield's latest album, Only Everything (featuring the terrific single, "Universal Heart Beat"), is a solid piece of hard bubblegum whimsy, similar to (but at this point, far eclipsing) her contemporary and former bandmate Evan Dando's Lemonheads. But this night, Hatfield's crunchy guitar and sugary pixie vocals didn't have the same kick as on the CD-the sonic whole lacked the buzzing gig energy of otherwise comparable combos like, say The Breeders or Elastica, which would have given Hatfield's impressively catchy songs (like the lovely "Live on Tomorrow") some juice. And it wasn't as if you could get swept away in a Dinosaur Jr.-like wash of noise, either; her band didn't seem to offer anything out of the ordinary. While Juliana's wholesome, waifish, alternative-girl-next-door image is cute on magazine covers, in a live setting, she suffers from a severe lack of star quality.

Troubadour shows "Grace"

The State News: November 1, 1994

Written and submitted by Chris Solari

  FERNDALE--The bag contains...a small room, a few people and good ol' fashioned rock 'n' roll.

  Of course, for those few people who did pile into The Magic Bag Theatre in Ferndale Saturday, the real sorcery and wizardry of the Halloween weekend was performed by Jeff Buckley.

  Buckley, who recently released his full-length debut "Grace" this fall, dazzled the crowd of about 250 people in the small movie theater-cabaret setting and lived up to his growing fame as a tremendously overwhelming live performer.

  Opening act Brenda Kahn, who will release a recording in February, warmed the crowd up with a great mix of eclectic alternative and beautiful rock numbers with her very intense voice-sometimes angelic, sometimes devilish.

  But the crowd grew extremely restless waiting for Buckley to take the stage. When his group came out after what seemed a lengthy intermission (even though it was only about 15 minutes), not a word was spoken, performer or audience.

  The theater grew dark, save for a ghastly orange glow set around Buckley and his guitar. What followed was five minutes of guitar play that would have made the devil himself cringe had the beast been there. Buckley used his extensive vocal range to emanate monk-like moans and wails from the gloomy light that haunted the small theater.

  Buckley strummed languidly through the very trippy intro before leading into the notes to his first song on "Grace," titled "Mojo Pin."

  He then followed up with another song from his debut LP-"So Real." The song started off with Buckley singing softly and serenely with his guitar and drums, then kicked in and out of tempo before the electric culmination. And Buckley's facial expressions while singing gave everything from angst to happiness to amusement to pain.

  Buckley did more tunes from "Grace," such as the title song and his version of the folk classic "Lilac Wine" while mixing playful banter with the audience. Those who paid the minimal $12 fee to see the show felt almost as one in the intimate atmosphere.

  Following "Lilac Wine," which showcased the tremendous voice of Buckley, a member of the audience shouted a request for him to sing "Sweet Surrender" by his late father, Tim Buckley. The woman even had the audacity to question Jeff Buckley's vocal range. The younger Buckley almost took offense to this, quipping back at the woman, who responded by saying she loved his music as well.

  "Do you see me up here? You see something that is no longer here," he politely, yet scornfully told the woman.

  With that, he launched into a number which he said was, "about love in any f**king generation." The opening chords sounded different, but the slide came out and Buckley tore into the third track on "Grace," "Last Goodbye." Tossing the slide aside, he hit a driving pace with his guitar and followed up with the song's touching lyrics.

  After hearing the conversation between Buckley and the woman in the crowd, I finally figured the song out. To me, the tune is almost a tribute to the father who died while his son was young. And the pain in the singer's eyes...the lyrics and his face emanated his sorrows.

  Most of the older crowd who were hoping for the performer to be his father left, leaving the true fans and music lovers.

  The only drawback to the show was technical problems. A low, annoying hum from the amps could not be corrected until almost the end of the show. But Buckley, who proved himself as a virile comedian as well as musical genius, joked about it and told the crowd there were problems- not trying to side-step the issue at all.

  Buckley went in to do some great numbers, like "Lover, You Should've Come Over" and the electrically powerful "Eternal Life" that showed Buckley's voice was more than that of a troubadour. He can rock with any musician and singer out today.

  He closed with a number that, of all things, included a cello. "Dream Brothers" was a perfect end to a great set, and the remaining crowd beckoned him back for an encore.

  In the future, watch for Jeff Buckley if he pops up around the area-his show is one that no man, woman, child, dog, cat, ect, should miss.

Grace review

The State News: September 14, 1994

Written and submitted by Chris Solari 

  In one of the most anticipated full-length debuts of the year, singer/songwriter Jeff Buckley comes out with a bang.

  After his live, four-song EP "Live at Sin-é" hit the streets last March, Buckley, son of folk-legend Tim Buckley, began to gain more critical success. He received rave reviews from Rolling Stone and Spin.

  Buckley put studio versions of two songs from "Live at Sin-é" on "Grace." But this tim, he puts a talented band behind his powerful guitar playing ability, making the lead track "Mojo Pin," and track nine, "Eternal Life," (both appeared on Live) a more complete reality than the man-and-guitar versions on the debut.

  The height of the release is "Last Goodbye," a powerful song that shows off a fabulous bass line, some tremendous riffs, and Buckley's powerful vocal magic.

  It's a touching song-actually giving the roller-coaster emotional feeling of saying farewell to a departing loved one.

  "Lilac Wine" is another strong  song, focusing primarily on Buckley's vocals and lyrics. It is a slow, quiet number that let's Buckley and his message take center stage.

  But the studio version of "Eternal Life" packs the biggest punch on the release. A hard-driving electric guitar opens the track, and rips apart the mellow feeling of the other songs-showing just how deep Buckley's music can go.

  "Grace" shows that Buckley can take many forms, and he can truly shine from behind his father's shadow.

Buckley's back

Burntwood Post: March 9, 1995

By Chris Evans

  It's been a good few years since anyone connected with the rock fraternity merited the once over-worked description "godlike genius", but Jeff Buckley comes close.

  Having conquered an audience at the Connaught Hotel armed with just an electric guitar last year, last Thursday he returned with his band and left a packed Wulfrun Hall gaping with awe.

  It's the Buckley voice that most beggars belief. Its range comfortably surpasses even top shouters like Robert Plant, its sensuousness brings to mind the great jazz vocalists.

  As ever Buckley's own songs were supplemented by some judicious covers. Old favorites like Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah and Elkie Brooks'Lilac Wine held the audience as rapt as ever, while ferocious versions of the MC5's Kick Out The Jams and Big Star's Kangaroo gave Buckley's excellent band a chance to let rip.

  If there's any justice Buckley will be a star of global proportions within 12 months.

Solo Jeff Live at Sin-e New Year's Eve '94

Submitted by Shelly Happart

From Carol E. Mariconda

Date : Wed, 4 Jan 1995 11:38:28 -0500 (EST)

[Note: Jeff had told me at Maxwell's that he was going to play a secret, unpublicized show at Sin-é on New Year's Eve. So I basically kept it to myself, since the folks at Sin-é were afraid it would turn into a mob scene if word got out. Well, it certainly became crowded enough anyway. Sorry... I hope I am forgiven for keeping mum, but I will make up for it in intricate detail...Pretend you have a hot mulled cider, and pull up a chair...Here goes...]

Jeff at Sin-é on New Year's Eve '94

  There were some people at a few of the small tables when Richard, Stephen, my brother Paul, his fiancée Veronica, and I got to the *TINY* Sin-é at 7:00 PM. We took the table by the window and door, ordered food and talked. It was really low-key. At a point we asked the pretty waitress about "JB", to confirm he had'nt cancelled out-still on for the night, great ! The bass player came up to the window, peered in to check what was going on, and split. Stephen looked happily out the window at the passers-by, and walked around the room unimpeded as people smiled at the sight of him.

  When the first woman singer went on at 9:00 PM, people started pilling in from virtually nowhere, blocking our view and door. The comedian Stephen Wright was there. We surmised thet he and the singer were an "item"; he left later when she did, before Jeff arrived, obviously unaware or disinterested in seeing Jeff perform-their loss. Anyway, my little Stephen was starting to feel claustrophobic, trying to crawl through people's feet, and crying in frustration, so we took him outside into the wet drizzle, and decided that Richard would have to take him home; I felt that I *had* to stay after all this, but I felt guilty and disappointed; when I got home much later, they had had a nice time together listening to a long piece of music by Karlheinz Stockhausen-a favorite of my husband's (Richard himself plays what he terms "intuitive electrosonic music for synthecizer" for our listening pleasure at home)-on the radio, and all was forgiven.

  So as the car pulled away, I was rounding the block, and saw Jeff and his guitar across his shoulder, hunched over, dressed in black, and hurrying into a bar called Anseo, which is few doors away from Sin-é.

  I went back into Sin-é, and wondered if I should get next door and talk to him, but decided not to bother him there. The second woman singer teasingly asked us if we all knew who was going to perform later, a few people including myself mumbled knowing yes's, and then she flat out told us all: Jeff Buckley! I really couldn't tell how many of them knew in advance. We recognized a number of people from the Maxwell's gig. She said she was honored to perform before him; I am sure she wanted to bear his babies or something. But he was still not there yet.

  Towards the end of her set, Jeff came in enveloped in his furry black coat, pushed through the crowd unnoticed, and hung out behind the bar, not seeming to talk much from what I could see. I couldn't tell if he saw me as I looked over at him several times to see what he was doing. Then I pushed through past the tiny bar with my head down, to go to the bathroom, and when I came out, lo and behold, he was sitting right there on the tiny little stove outside the bathroom door. He looked at me and I looked at him. He bugged his eyes out in a comedic way, and outstreching his arm, pointed, and said a mock-surprised "Youuuuuu !!!!" as I, with a good sense of comedic timing, did the same thing back at him; it was very funny. He said "Hello again, Carolynn", and I said "Hi"; he introduced me to the guy next to him. Then I stood there for about 5 confused seconds to see if that was all, turned, and walked away back to my table. He was just about to go on.

  The three of us decided to vacate and abandoned our secure table, in favor of being swept along into rough tide in the middle of that TINY crowded room, ending up much closer, right behind the front middle table; there were many poeple looking in the windows from the damp city street outside-not a prime listening position, but a good visual vantage point nevertheless.

  Jeff moved to the right side of the tall, worn, metal Sin-é sign on the wall, standing against it wearing a lime-green long-sleeved shirt with only the top button done, spread apart by his guitar to show a white thermal shirt underneath, his trademark baggy pants, and chunky shoes. His black hair was unkempt, longish, and parted in the middle, with one side tucked behind one of his pierced ears. As he jammed to a song playing on Sin-é's tape to warm up, the crowd continued to talk loudly. After he played his first song, which was "So Real", he asked what time it was when he was reminded about the special Midnight about to take place-3 minutes to, and counting. This is when he mentioned that he was confused earlier that day, because he thought that the St. Mark's poetry reading was to be New Year's Eve, not New Year's Day! So he decided to preview the poem he had written called "You My Love"-a very interesting, funny creation, with a few little alluded to bits of our conversation on stage at Maxwell's, in between songs, as if those wisps of thought were fresh on his mind. That gave me insight into how he usually ad libs in between songs-obviously a combination of things he has just been contemplating beforehand, and thoughts that just pop into his head in the moment when he is performing. He has a very quick wit. Anyhow, it was a very good poem, and went over quite well. As he read it, casting each line aside much too quickly, I immediately felt the urge to examine it carefully, and savor it on paper, at the same time as a wish that I could remember it all to post for our group. Lines that stuck out in my mind :

You my love are allowed to kill and smash your television to tiny bits...[something like that and a long run-on sentence here elaborating on that thought, that I really wish I could remember. It was the longest, and best line of the poem.]

You my love are allowed to forgive your television.

You my love are allowed to take my guitar and play me...[some off-key song...I am not sure of this.] You my love are allowed to suck at any endeavor

  Speaking of sucking, there was a very loud, obnoxious male heckler, who seemed to be part of a group of people who were just talking and talking. We figured that some girls who liked Jeff brought their jealous, rowdy boyfriends along. This one particular fellow was yelling things like "Yo Jeff! The Buckster! Do it! Rock!" etc. Jeff broke into Nirvana's teen spirit and imitated the sound of a gun going off. Everyone laughed but he was obviously annoyed, and I was too. As the guy persisted, Jeff said something about a "night of non sequiturs," maybe in the hopes of politely shutting him up. The clock struck Midnight, and he sang "Auld Lang Sin-é" in a low register, climbing to a humorous falcetto at the end. Always the quirky, contrary one, Jeff mentioned that his New Year's Eve resolution was to start smoking. He reminded us all to remember to write 1995 on our rent checks.Then he charged into a song, by the late Fred "Sonic" Smith (Patty Smith's recently deceased husband) of the MC5's, called "Kick out the jams", after dedicating it to his memory. It was a fast, aggressive song, and he sang it with a lot of angry teeth-baring. When he finished that heckler said "GO Jeff! Rock!" or something in a mocking way, as the crowd cheered loudly. That's when Jeff said something to the effect "If this is all that is going to happen after a year of doing what I've done..." One of the girls said to that creep that they had to go, because he was being rude and disruptive, and the whole group left. YAY! So it got quieter, but people were still *talking*...because of New Year's and liquor? Jeff suddenly leaned up against the wall, and quietly meandered into "Young lovers do".  It was the first time I heard him perform this song live and I was thrilled. It felt like he intended it as a way of testing to see if the audience would quiet. He did his "NYC bed bouncing on a hard wood floor..." etc improv thing, that he interjects into different jams at different concerts, in the middle of it. By the end of this more subdued version than on "Live at Sin-é", he had quieted the room considerably.

  From this point on-with the exception of one hilarious funny break in the rest of the set's mood, when a group pf people outside were celebrating loudly, and he made a funny comment, grabbed a helium balloon, inhaled, and broke into a cross between a Tweetie Bird meets Alvin Chipmunk version of that second Green Day single " Basket Case"-the whole atmosphere of the set got progressively sadder. Moving closer and closer to the front, at one point I was sitting on the floor, looking up at him, until finally I ended up *directly* in front of him about 3 feet away, sitting in a chair that someone was leaving offered me on the way out; I could not believe several people were actually leaving right in front of him-as if they had something better to do?

  Jeff mentioned a few times something about "sucking" in a disgusting way, but he said that at the Maxwell's too. But I thought he was wonderful, and I was paying *extremely* close attention. He is too overly self-critical. I really cannot reconstruct the set list, because there were many songs with which I was not familiar, which I was quite *pleased* about, since I have always wanted to experience him the way he has been described in the old Sin-é days-solo, and singing incandescent performances of classic songs. Just being there, I really felt privileged to be seeing him solo and singing all these songs I had never heard before. Those renditions were so touchingly soft, delicate, and beautiful-just amazing and intimate to me. All these shows will be treasured memories for me when he lifts off, and cannot be touched again. But I couldn't help but wonder what it was like for him to be standing there on New Year's Eve, up there all alone after all this time, and experiences of this whole past year. Was the crowd comprised of the "old crowd", or were they mainly new people who guessed, or found out that he would be there? Was the "vibe" different for him? How did he feel about the Holiday Season? The end of the tour? Did he miss his mother? How did all this affect the way he felt each passing song as he internalized, and then exhaled it? All these thoughts blended together as I watched, listened, and felt the intensity of his presence and the music. I recall that he played the following, in no particular order. I know that I am leaving out a number of songs, but I didn't write anything down; when I started to worry about how I would "report about the concert", my brother advised me to "Just enjoy the show", which I really knew I should do. Besides, that was obviously Jeff's sentiment too, as voiced earlier when he pleaded with someone trying to take a picture of him that he should *please* put that thing away, and let it just be him and us and the night. Here are the songs that I remember, in no particular order, except toward the end :

Bob Dylan's "If you see her, say hello."

A beautiful, new song, which I can't wait to hear again, that might be titled "Flowers bend toward the sun" - just lovely !

That Judy Garland song, that we were debating about on the list, called "The man that got away".

"A song for all women in the audience" [about a man that is pined for for, but never returns]

"A song for the men in the audience - all three of you." [or a song for all three sexes, not to leave anybody in the room out. I forget the "message" of the song.]

A song that he had "not performed in a *very* long time."

"Lover, you should've come over." [One of my favorites !]

I was sitting directly in front of him for :

"Mojo Pin"

"Grace"

"Hallelujah"

  As the show progressed, he drew increasingly inward, closing his eyes for most of the songs. Instead of connected with the people in the room, his gaze cast down to the guitar fretboard and strings, and then lowering still to pass along the floor, his lips slightly parted and gravitating downward as well. Gone was his usual mischievously funny comedic ad libbing, and smilingly animated radiant face that routinely break through after the end of each time-suspending, transcendent soul-letting that propels forth from his being with an emotional intensity that at many times is just too awesome to behold; those funny emotional disclaimers after each soul-baring had disappeared. He had become withdrawn, quiet, and seemed not to be able to look uo at us any longer. Those beautiful songs just seemed even sadder and more intense. With his neck stretching, and head tilted back and up, his impossibly open and expressive face alternated between agitated contortion, and relaxed simple stillness lulled by one of his own long, suspended, hovering notes. The inner corners of his long, thick, dark eyebrows arched upward as far as they could physically travel, with his lips stretched taut around wide bare, sharp, teeth spitting forward invisible, loud, spikey attacks of sound, alternating with lips curving gently and quivering around invisible, escaping shapes of soft, intricate, delicate, whisps of barely audible sound-these extremes enveloping a seemingly endless wealth of all the continuous, fleeting, intricate facial gestures and utterances in between. The songs became lullabies, most of which he sang with his eyes shut tight, feeling each, one after the other. He could no longer look up-sad and withdrawn, standing there all alone, shoulders hunched, and leaning up against the wall.

  By the time he sang his last "Hallelujah"-the most moving version I have experienced-I was staring off into space, and on the verge of tears.

  He ended at about 1:30 with no encore, because another band was supposed to go on after him. People came up to him, he has very quickly packed up his guitar. He did not seem chatty. I could not move. Then I pondered whether to approach him. But the way in which people were stopping quickly to say things like "nice show", etc reinforced my feeling that anything I would have said would have been inappropriate and invasive. This is one thing that I have trouble understanding: why people do not just look at his face and see what mood he is in, before just almost "attacking" him with niceties, when all one has to do is look at him to realize how he feels, and really see that, as was the case that night, it was not at all what he wanted or needed. I could not even move; imagine how *he* felt *doing* that ?

  We left and hung outside for a few minutes, and he quickly emerged, looked around at a few people obviously waiting for him, and seemed not to want to engage in talk with them. He just basically waved a quick goodbye, and hurried up the street into the darkness of the night, and the dawning New Year.

The little prince of rock in a state of grace

Jeff Buckley at Victoire 2

Midi Libre, February, 1995

By Laurent Laboutière

Submitted by Eric at cprsoundradio.com

Translated by me

In a packed room, the revelation of the year struck the audience with a deluge of emotions and purity, and confirmed a talent of a rare authenticity

  The arrival of the artist of the year is inevitably prepared like the concert of the year. We talk about it before each one goes of its small anecdote, of its interpretation of the analyses of the specialized press, of its tips unearthed in the British gazettes...And the date of Montpellier left time for it since Bettie Serveert had cancelled her performance in first part for health reasons.

  In a Victoire hall filled but still viable in the back, near the merchandising stand where the most convinced fans buy T-shirts and other gadgets stamped with the name of the star, eight hundred people are waving and waiting for the entrance of the newly revealed genius.

  Without pomp and circumstance, the young Buckley takes to the stage surrounded by his quartet. Quietly he surrounds his Telecaster and begins the exploration of his little marvel of a first album, the voice already far, very (?) high, in these famous spheres full of grace and lightness. Leather jacket on T-shirt of the tour, intriguing smile, he carries his guitar very low, does not launch out in long speeches between the pieces and tries, above all to weave as quickly as possible this atmosphere which will soon invade the room until plunging it in a rare silence where are mixed the surprise, the interest and a very big respect.

  "I found the room particularly attentive tonight. It was a very good concert" he confided after the show. Indeed, one could have heard flies flying at certain moments, which at Victoire, and in a rock concert in general, is an exceptional achievement. It is that Jeff Buckley imposes. Little by little he takes the whole room by the guts, strikes it with intense emotions, juggling power and crystalline clarity, the falsely fragile purity of his voice, these divine phrases that he whispers without modesty, seeming to open up to the depths of his soul and his feelings to better drown everyone in his bowels.

  "So Real", "Grace", "Eternal Life", the most sustained tracks of his album take a disconcerting relief. The intros stretch, the voice twists around, the orgasmic rise is much longer than in studio. More approximate also, spontaneous. Here and there the arpeggios slip, dissonant, but these small snags have no other effect than to make the show even more touching, more authentic, extraordinarily human, far from the live set to the millimeter, sanitized.

As for his more intimate compositions, "Lilac Wine", "Lovers", they are enriched by his presence and the vertigo of living a unique moment of such an intensity, such a delicate power, such a refined strength that they are almost more violent than the others.

On stage, without technical fiddling or special effects, the filiation with his father Tim, underground myth of the 70s, is even more obvious. His ethereal, elusive voice seems to come from beyond, touched by the grace of who knows which God. The general atmosphere is totally 70's, soaring, atmospheric. The entire room floats on a surreal mattress of intoxicating fragrances.

After a few unreleased tracks in addition to his entire album, Jeff Buckley performs a stunning version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah". Magic and bewitching moment. He will offer two encores, one of which is a solo that delivers a fatal overdose of purity, leaving the impression of having lived an exceptional moment, surprising in comparison to what the album suggested, bursting with beauty, sensitivity and finesse. Obviously, this little prince of the rock revival has not finished to make talk about him and to offer us treasures of emotions.

CMJ Grace review

October, 1994

By Steve Ciabattoni

Jeff Buckley

Grace

Columbia

Jeff Buckley's voice is the most moving goddamn instrument to come along in rock since Sinead O'Connor's impassioned cry. On Grace, Buckley soars into falsetto trills and cathartic moans recalling the jazz-rock of his father (the late Tim Buckley), with a little of Robert Plant's Zeppelin bravura thrown in. In its ten songs, Grace paints Buckley as an artistic, provocative young performer, able to draw upon classic rock's poetic spirit while avoiding a dated "freedom rock" vibe. As a songwriter, Buckley roams comfortably between soulful hippie-folk and a crushing hard rock sound, suggesting he's got as many records by Faith No More as he does by his dad. Strong and eclectic as his songs are, it's the album's cover versions that directly reveal Buckley's boldness of talent. Case in point: It takes more than a little gumption to do a solo guitar/vocal version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," and do it in jaw-dropping, Cohen-topping fashion. From that track, to the roaring acid blues of "Mojo Pin," to an angelic rendition of Benjamin Britten's "Corpus Christi Carol," Buckley delivers all the songs with spirit. His passionate, bohemian mindset enables him to conjure comparisons from Soundgarden to Joni Mitchell and let all his influences fly in this stunning collection of songs.

DATALOG: Release date: Aug. 23. First single "Mojo Pin." Video for "Grace.

FILE UNDER: Dazzling debuts.

R.I.Y.L.: Pearl Jam, early Van Morrison, Led Zeppelin's III.

R.I.Y.L.: RECOMMEND IF YOU LIKE

Queen's Hall Review

The List: June 30, 1995

By Alastair Mabbott

JEFF BUCKLEY

Queen's Hall, Edinburgh, 20 June.

  With a mere one-and-a-half albums behind him, Jeff Buckley is casting a gargantuan shadow-even if it is only on the back wall of the Queen's Hall and comes courtesy of an ankle-level spotlight. Until you realise how much work he's still got to do before he fulfils his potential, it can seem like Jeff's already a towering colossus. There's tremendous raw talent here, presence and power. But there are also a lot of opportunity missed, others pursued beyond decent limits and, beneath his easy-going and likeable stage presence, a sense that he's still looking for the coontrol and hair-fine judgment he needs before he can be truly great.

  Which is not to say that he doesn't have fleeting moments of brilliance. These usually occur in his own songs-anything from the first half of Grace and a few new ones unveiled tonight-though even they sometimes suffer from an overdose of Buckley's flamboyant self-expression.

  He tells us a joke that suggests he's aware of at least some of the pitfalls of his position. "How many Jeff Buckleys does it take to change a lightbulb?" The answer goes something like "No problem, Jeff, I'll fix it, you just sit there. Want some peanuts? A Coke?"

  Perhaps to break out of that trap of fawning indulgence, or to piss off the punter who yells for his dad's "Song To The Siren", he leads his band into two gnarly grunge-outs. They're shit. And the cage remains unrattled. At the end, he struggles with "Hallelujah", forgetting the words and visibly straining to put across a song that remains just out of his grasp. But, like Tinkerbell, he's carried through it by the audience, who see a victory not a messy draw. Closing with Chilton's "Kangaroo" is a risky move, too-the original was so bent out of shape that there's little for Jeff to do but dick around with it in slightly different ways.

  The thing is that there's enough evidence that Jeff Buckley will mature into a brilliant performer, and it's hard to leave here tonight totally disheartened. This man's shortcomings hold as much promise as most people's highlights, but it's going to be a long-if interesting-slog.

The Garage (Glasgow) Review

The List: March 10, 1995

By Fiona Shepherd

JEFF BUCKLEY

The Garage, Glasgow, 28 Feb.

  Already, after Jeff Buckley has been less than one year in the public arena, it seems that We Are Not Worthy. Any lost souls taking a wrong turning at Charing Cross and ambling into The Garage would have been forgiven for thinking they'd walked into the middle of a church service, with the willing flock lending the firebrand preacher their undivided, submissive attention.

  Obviously, some of us just belong to a different denomination. See that cynical dissenter? That was me, that was. The one that dared to have a conversation while Jeff (that's Mr. Buckley to us riff-raff) tortuously wrestled with his Muse. The one that yawned while Jeff changed guitars in such a talented way. Pardon me for not joining so readily in the mass genuflection.

  Well, it's easy to scoff at Buckley's over-indulgence, but it's also easy to see why he's accorded such reverence. In a world where (slot in personal mediocre bugbear) can be given the time of day, we're unaccustomed to expecting 24-carat emotion from our musical heroes. But Jeff gives it 110 per cent, Brian. Not Whitney-Houston-belt-it-out-and-call-it-emotion emotion, but the feeling of being swept along, even manipulated, by the total sound emanating from the stage. Guitars swell, then fall away to a spare, clear chime and the Voice really is something potentially awesome, ebbing and flowing in harmony with the rest of the band.

  At their best-and there are some powerhouse moments in among all the fudge-Buckley and band have a thrillingly instinctive, organic feel, like Led Zeppelin when they weren't too busy being rock pigs, and the quavering vocals have the power of a Robert Plant or an Ian Gillan. But there are whole chapters with no plot where it seems Buckley is just skating along, relying on the audience's frequently-articulated heckles of goodwill, and, the empty aftertaste of these moments is as enduring as the memory of his howling passion. So let's hold the canonization for now, eh?

Gambler runs out of luck

The Sydney Morning Herald: February 19, 1996

By Bruce Elder

Jeff Buckley, Enmore Theatre, February 15

  THE average rock concert is like an old poker machine in a suburban RSL club. You pay your money, you pull the handle, and God knows what's likely to come out. Every few pulls, you get a reasonable payout and, far too rarely, you amaze yourself when the aces come up and the machine disgorges pure gold.

  When Jeff Buckley toured Australia at the end of last August, he was like "The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo." Every night the aces came up. He played both The Metro and the Phoenician Club and audiences staggered away amazed at the concentrated power and intensity of his performance. His voice was a wonder to behold-a great soaring instrument which could roar and whisper and bring tears to the eyes of those who listened. His songs were all so passionate and his guitar playing ranged from wild, fiery chunks of neo-punk agression to a delicacy and sensitivity worthy of his late father.

  So, one wondered about halfway through his rather tedious performance at the Enmore, what's happened in the past six months? Did the gambler run out of luck? You can offer many plausible explanations.

  1. The Enmore is always a crappy venue and not even Buckley could conquer its awful acoustics and its shabby ambience.

  2. Buckley and his band have been touring on the back of their debut Grace which they recorded two years ago and which contained 10 songs, two of which-Hallelujah and Corpus Christi Carol-they never perform live. They are just sick of playing the same old eight songs and throwing in a version of the MC5's Kick Out the Jams for good measure.

  3. They're in the middle of writing new songs for their second album and their collective mind isn't really on the task at hand, playing a halfway decent gig to a bunch of enthusiastic fans.

  4. They average a great performance about one time in five (reasonable odds for a gambler) and Sydney just got lucky last time they visited.

  Whatever the reason, this was not a great concert. There is little doubt that, when the circumstances are right, Jeff Buckley is amazing. At points during this concert, that wonderful voice soared and swirled and dived. At other points, the urgency and intensity was almost palpable.

  Grace was delivered with memorable feeling and there was an almost a capella version of Lilac Wine. But, for most of the night, this was a concert played by numbers. The bass player got to sing a song (who cares?). Buckley talked, or rather mumbled, at the audience a couple of times. In the end this was a performance without focus or commitment. The sub-Sonic Youth encore was a suitably forgettable ending to  a very forgettable night.

  I'll see him next time he comes to town but he better be much better. In the interim, those who can remember will have to live with memories of last August.

Forging old rock sounds into new

The Sydney Morning Herald: August 30, 1995

By Bruce Elder

Jeff Buckley, Metro Theatre, Aug 28

  It is likely that after 40 years, rock 'n' roll as a genre has played every card in its limited pack. All that is left for young musicians is to reshuffle the deck and try to win the game with interesting new strategies. Thus, Jeff Buckley, one of the hottest and most interesting of all the new talents to emerge in the past 18 months, doesn't offer anything particularly new. Rather he pulls together a combination of influences and comes up with a performance which, through sheer dint of his emotional commitment and on-stage charisma, establishes him as one of the most significant and innovative performers to have emerged in the past five years.

  Buckley's influences are both rich and incongruous. Not surprisingly, his primary influence comes from his late father, Tim Buckley. His father's music was strange, often unsuccessful but never uninteresting, mixture of  jazz, folk, and rock 'n' roll. In a very real sense Buckley junior has taken up this baton and pushed the possibilities further.

  But his influences are much more complex than just a family tradition. At times he swerves off in the direction of New York punk circa 1978. At one point he offered a sizzling, and highly eccentric, version of the MC5's punk classic Kick Out the Jams. At other times his approach to guitar playing-everything from barely touching the strings to forcing ear-bleeding feedback from the speakers-hovers in a world explored by guitarists as diverse as Robert Fripp and Fred Frith. At other times, when his band of Mick Grondahl (bass), Matt Johnson (drums) and Michael Tighe (guitar) unleash their fiery, pent-up energy, he is reminiscent of those forgotten avant-garde west coast bands who inhabited San Francisco in the late 1960s.

  Like his father, Buckley understands the importance of sonic textures. He whispers and wails. His guitar roars one minute and drops into silence the next.

  Songs build from almost folky introductions to become great walls of guitar intensity. At times, conventional shape and form dissolve. He has an instinctive understanding of light and shade and of the dynamics which will keep a performance interesting.

  Buckley's debut album Grace was a deeply flawed, love-it-or-hate-it, hotch-potch of experiments and sublime, emotional singing. Any reservations the album may have created are swept away by his live performance. His stength lies in the way he has brought together old rock elements and forged them into something something new, challenging and successfully experimental. The  result is a performance of great power and integrity from an immensely gifted performer who effortlessly seduces and mesmerises his audience his audience. Not surprisingly, as the capacity audience drifted off into the night, there was a feeling that this was one of those performances that will be long remembered and treasured.

The crowd was there, but Hatfield & Co. snoozed through show

Asbury Park Press: June 3, 1995

By Eric Deggans, PRESS MUSIC WRITER

  SEA BRIGHT-"This is the weirdest concert I've ever been to," said one exasperated onlooker, shaking his head for emphasis. "It's just really strange."

  I knew how he felt. Five minutes into Juliana Hatfield's Thursday night set at the Tradewinds, the signs of trouble were already there.

  The band members looked like they'd stoked up on Demerol before taking the stage, sleepwalking through the bombastic opener "What a Life" like they were trying to remember what movies were on pay-per-view back in their hotel room.

  The audience shifted uncomfortably, totally supportive of Hatfield and ready to explode into a frenzy of dance and moshing, if only the band would give them a reason. Unfortunately, they didn't, preferring to run through their set with detached cool and let the vibe slide downhill, like watching a disaster movie in slow motion.

  Thank god for opening act Jeff Buckley. Bouncing onstage midway through Hatfield's set to sing backup on the single "Universal Heartbeat," he concluded his backup duties by diving into the audience, crowd surfing his way to the side of the stage.

  Suddenly, the fans had the burst of energy they needed, and began to loosen up. "You guys are all right," Hatfield finally said after riffing through an earlier hit, "Spin the Bottle." "At first, I had my doubts."

  After that comment, it was obvious; the carrot-topped frontwoman just didn't get it. Earth to Juluana: It wasnt the audience that was sleepwalking on the job, honey-it was you.

  Nothing is more annoying than a band that wants something for nothing, especially when they're onstage. And Hatfield seemed to expect the 1,000 fans packed into the seaside club to explode the minute she picked up her guitar; never mind that they're the ones who actually paid to be there-don't they know who the star is here?

  To be sure, Hatfield's band-now expanded to a four-piece unit with a second guitarist and keyboardis-offered expert backing, roaring through energetic rockers like "Fleur de Lys" and "OK OK" with practiced ease.

  But Hatfield's pretentious vibe-combined with a sound system that chose the worst moments to fritz out-contributed to a tepid show that disappointed many in the crowd, this reviewer included.

  Buckley's set was equally obtuse, kicking off with the ethereal, textured "Mojo Pin," his vibrant voice warbling off the walls like Robert Plant on depressants. Offering a few harder-edge songs along with his current single "Last Goodbye" and a breathtaking version of the sideways groove "So Real," the singer/songwriter seemed to be trying a shot at the Modern Rock God pose.

  But, after a few minutes spent listening to the swirling guitars, tentative percussion and Buckley's trademark falsetto vocals, I found myself wondering where the songs were. No hooks, few consistent melodies and a wandering song structure contributed to the rootless, disconnected feeling his set brought.

  When the formula worked, it was exhilarating experience. But too many times, as with Hatfield's shoe-gazing onstage vibe, you found yourself wondering when the show was actually going to start.

Hatfield puts on full-throttle show in homecoming

The Boston Globe: May 30, 1995

By Steve Morse, GLOBE STAFF

  Juliana Hatfield wasn't joking. When she promised to rock more on this tour, she meant it. She headed in that direction on her new album, "Only Everything," and she steered down a similar high-decibel, guitar-rocking path last night at the sold-out Avalon club, where 1,500 fans caught a full-throttle show that cast aside any notion of her being a shy, innocent waif.

  Some songs needed more melody, and some would have profited from a better vocal mix, but Hatfield could not be accused of taking it easy in her homecoming appearance at the largest club in town. She'll do it again tonight (tickets still remain); and the openers will again be Jeff Buckley (son of famed 60s folkie Tim Buckley) and Bostonians Cold Water Flat, who each had moments of high, if not consistent, intensity.

  Hatfield, a Berklee College of Music graduate by way of Duxbury, has not sold as many records as expected with "Only Everything," which fell to no. 190 on the Billboard charts last week (after seven weeks of release). Acts such as Hatfield and Belly were supposed to be the next big modern-rock success stories (Belly even made the cover of Rolling Stone), but so far it hasn't happened.

  Still, there's no shame in selling out Avalon-and there was no shame in last night's performance. In an anti-fashion statement, Hatfield emerged wearing a basic white t-shirt and bluejeans (looking as if she'd just left an auto body shop), but she played with a slashing drive that prompted some frenzied moshing up front. She said little between songs, but the music said it for her-keenly high-pitched vocals amid dense slabs of her guitar. She was aided by her regular rhythm section-drummer Todd Phillips, bassist Dean Fisher and two fine new members in second guitarist Ed Slanker and keyboardist Lisa Mednick.

  The new musicians helped flesh out the sound, which had a hammer-down energy from the start with "Idols"and "What a Life." Hatfield's girlish voice was overwhelmed at times by the volume, but showed increased power from previous visits. She ignited the mosh pit with "Fleur de Lys" and "Congratulation," with its spat-out line: "I don't know what I like, only what I don't." Deadline pressure made it impossible to catch her entire show, but her continued improvement was obvious.

  Buckley's hour-long set with a four-piece band was filled with extremes; some positive, some not. At tines he sang with far too much arch solemnity, sounding pretentiously like a reedy, cut-rate version of the Doors' Jim Morrison. Buckley was much better when he picked up the tempo on a surprise, punky cover of the MC5's "Kick Out the Jams' and on the radio hit, "Last Goodbye," where he played tasty slide guitar.

  Boston trio Cold Water Flat had many strong moments, though not enough strong songs. Still, singer Paul Janovitz sang with mounting confidence. And the closing "Magnetic North Pole" (the band's radio single) suggested that high potential remains.