Jeff Buckley
Live At Sin-é
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Jeff Buckley
Live At Sin-é
Columbia, 1993
RiYL: Led Zeppelin, Chris Cornell, Edith Piaf |
Sin-é is open again, or at least a club with the same name opened its doors a few blocks away. Buckley, of course, is still gone, and it seems more fitting, somehow, to think of his old haunt as similarly shuttered and closed. It seems better to remember Buckley as the sure-fire next big thing standing alone on the stage with just his acoustic guitar and a spotlight if that stage now stands empty and the spotlight has been pawned off.
Live at Sin-é is a four-song EP documenting a Buckley performance in 1993 that shows Buckley in all his young and shrieking glory. Widely renowned for his vocal acrobatics, Buckley was also an underrated and creative guitarist. But oh, that voice. It rises up into the falsetto range and down into a chesty growl, it bounces from French to nonsense to dreamy whispers to howling bombast. New fans scrambled to track Live at Sin-é down after the critical success of 1994’s Grace, and with good reason.
The first two tracks on the EP would later appear on Grace. On “Mojo Pin,” Buckley breathily announces that “this is a song about a dream.” It begins with acoustic arpeggios and Buckley singing wordlessly, setting an abstract scene. Perfectly acceptable art rock follows, abstruse lyrics over proficient guitar playing. And then at the end, a hint of the potential to come. The strumming becomes pounding, the singing turns to a roar, and then just as quickly it all fades out.
On Grace, “Eternal Life” is a driving rock song, but here it’s something much more personal. When Buckley sings, “When will I find the strength to bring me release,” and it sounds like the words escape from his body only at great cost, you wonder how accidental his drowning really was. For the most part, however, the song doesn’t seem a depressing suicide note, though it’s certainly a statement of anger and alienation. The power of Buckley’s voice is displayed to its fullest on “Eternal Life,” without the heavy instrumentation that clutters up the studio version.
From here, a departure. Buckley puts away the rock star trappings and becomes a broken-hearted Frenchwoman, covering and channeling the great chanteuse, Edith Piaf. “Je N’en Connais Pas la Fin” is the short album’s finest moment, by far, a performance I haven’t tired of even after ten years of frequent listens. His guitar becomes a calliope, simple and quiet. His voice reaches new levels of warmth and emotion, his – and Piaf’s -- heartbreak riding in clear on the airwaves. There is no chance that anyone whispered, or even moved during its performance that night in New York. Drink sales stopped. The bathroom attendant stopped handing out towels. Everyone was still.
Live at Sin-é’s final track is a Van Morrison cover, “The Way Young Lovers Do,” and it’s where Buckley shows off. He scats and he squeals and he picks up the pace and intensity on his guitar playing. It is ten minutes of virtuosity, of sheer skill on display. It’s better to gape at than it is to listen to, even though it still makes for a good listen. It’s also a reminder of a young man lost, and a young talent that shouldn’t be forgotten.
JEFF GRAY | Jeff Gray used to be an important mover and shaker in Chicago, but gave all that up to live on a beach in rural Hawaii. You'll notice him if you're there, he's the one who's very tall and a little bit sunburned. His musical tastes tend towards the mainstream -- Phish, Radiohead, The Strokes -- but he'll argue to the death that those bands are mainstream because they're 100% awesome. Jeff's always on the lookout for the next great pop song, tidbits about Michigan football, and 80's action movies on cable.