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.

Buckley's burden

 The Age: February 23, 1996

  For those who saw him late last year, the waiting is over. But can Jeff Buckley, the man who whose talent enraptured Melbourne audiences, do it again? He spoke with Dugald Jellie.

  THERE IS a certain precedent wth Jeff Buckley. The precedent of last year's whistlestop tour, in which the New York-based singer-songwriter mesmerized those who saw his shows and heard those aching, soulful vocals. His three Melbourne performances were rightly lauded by the music press, with tags such as "gig of the year" tossed about freely.

  In Buckley, audiences across Australia were seeing something new-a story that was being told for the first time. His visceral voice, his hymnal tunes, his haunting elegance, all captured on his 1994 album Grace, struck a deep and resonant chord.

  And then there is the precedent of his father. Jeff Buckley is the son of the venerated late-1960s Los Angeles fringe folk singer, Tim Buckley, who possessed one of the most distinctive and lyrical voices of his generation. His live performances were such that the rock music critic Lillian Roxon once wrote: "There is no name yet for the places that he and his voice can go."

  The story of father and son is tragically short. Jeff Buckley only met his father once, when aged 8, before he died of a heroin overdose. He was to spend most of his childhood singing with his mother, a classically trained pianist and cellist, in the car, bundled around the white trash settlements of Southern California.

  Perhaps because of the legacy, the burden, of his father, Buckley, 28, baulks at any discussion of his bloodlines. It is a connection riddled with mystique and, yet so important, with his vocal style echoing that of his father's, albeit with other strongly original elements. "I've accepted that this is my life," he whispers. "I wouldn't change it. Lots of bad things have happened and lots of irreparable damage has been done. It's the agony of learning all over again."

  It's a heritage that has given Buckley so much strength and inspiration. He personifies the maxim that those who bleed the deepest give the most love and joy through their art.

  His days at school, for instance, were unhappy, and much of his youth was spent on the road. "I always felt I was born into an environment that had no use for me until I moved some place I chose, like New York. I was born into circumstances, either surrounded by the Disneyland Nazi youth of Anaheim, California, or being moved around, dealing with whatever."

  The past is history, with Buckley embarking on yet another tour of the Antipodes, presumably still on the strength of Grace, the hype surrounding his shows late last year, and possibly even the resurgent interest in the music of his father. Melbourne's Shock Records has recently released a back catalog of five Tim Buckkley CDs, including the live recordings Honeyman and Dream Letter.

  But for those who saw him in September, here's the rub: the man has no new material since he last played, or given any indication where his writings in New York are taking him. "No direction really. It just sounds like the music sounds now," was his only suggestion. If that's the case, expect more of the poetry of Leonard Cohen and Allen Ginsberg and the politics of Noam Chomsky and Bob Dylan.

  His recent shows in Sydney, by all reports, suffered because the material sounded stale, the voice tired. Only rarely did his famed voice soar and swirl and dive. Was it the awful acoustics of the venue, or just that you can only sustain vitality for so long when playing the same core of eight songs?

  So for those who saw him first time around, how can the second coming be any better, especially when the sound is likely to be lost in a bigger venue? "Even if we play a song again it will be a very different experience," he says. "If you put your all into it's kinda hard not to get people's attentions."

  Hopefully, that will be the case, and Buckley will be back with all the raw passion of his performances last year. He will, he promises, put on a solid show.

  "I don't want people to love me," he says. "I don't want them to fall in love with me. I don't want them to adore me. What I wish, is for them to be free to enjoy that weird thing that happens to people when they're in a room hearing a story for the first time that they'll never hear again.

  "There's a love, a mutual appreciation, that happens. But it has nothing to do with my name, or my body, it's just a real essential human thing. That's what I hope to happen."

Jeff Buckley plays the Palais Theatre, 27 February with the Dambuilders; 28 February with the Grifters; and the Palace, 29 February, with the Grifters and Crow.

Voice of an angel in a hard and dirty realm

Prince Patrick Hotel review
The Age, September 4, 1995
By Dugald Jellie
Submitted by Sai

A CONFESSION. I first heard Jeff Buckley only several months ago, early on a Sunday morning on the car radio. The Triple J announcer, Francis Leach, I think, was talking about an evangelical New York singer by the name of Buckley. The song was Hallelujah.
  I heard there was a sacred chord/That David played and it pleased the Lord/but you don't really care for music do you?
  On Saturday night at the Prince Patrick Hotel, Jeff Buckley, and his music, were alive. From the moment he started crying-his voice transformed into the sounds of a sitar as if to tell the audience: "if you want me to, this is what I can do"-everyone knew that tonight, in the bowels of a pub somewhere in Colingwood, they were in for something special.
  Buckley, squeezed into a pink top with the words "take that, love you" across his chest, mesmerized the audience for an hour-and-a-half with his visceral voice, playing the hymnal tunes from his debut album Grace.
  At times, with songs such as Lover, You Should've Come Over and Last Goodbye, his body writhing and contorting to each lyric, it was as though rock music was merging with the ecclesiastical.
  Was it that the lone spotlight shining down on the singer, guitar slashed across shoulder a halo?
   But between moments of haunting elegance, Buckley's voice and music also divulged, as with So Real, a hard and dirty realm, immersed in anguish.
  When I first heard Buckley's voice on the radio I didn't know it came from the son of the venerated late-1960s Los Angeles fringe folk singer, Tim Buckley; that the song he was playing, Hallelujah, was penned by the post Leonard Cohen.
  And it's not a cry that you hear at night/It's not somebody who's seen the light/It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah.
  I didn't know that Jeff Buckley only met his father once, aged eight, before he died of a heroin overdose. Or that he grew up singing with his mother, a classically trained pianist and cellist, in the car, bundled around southern California.
  All I knew was that his was an exquisite voice. It was as though an angel was singing for us.
  The highlight of the show was a mournful solo rendition of Morrissey's I Know It's Over, perhaps the saddest song ever penned. The audience, many of whom had queued for tickets (which sold out in two hours) for this small venue tour, were breathless.
  The only lowlight was the background clinking of drinks being served, and the sing-along vocals of over-exuberant fans.
  When it was all over, the audience exhausted, my companion turned and asked: "Did I just die and go to heaven?" Such was the mood of the room.