Jeff Buckley Tribute Concert

The Old Globe will present a one-night-only Jeff Buckley Tribute Concert on Monday, August 19, at 7pm, that will feature several prominent San Diego artists covering the songs of the legendary musician. The concert coincides with the Globe’s upcoming production of The Last Goodbye, a fusion of Buckley’s music with Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The concert will benefit the Globe’s student Shakespeare programs, and will take place in the outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theatre. Ticket prices start at $20. (619.23.GLOBE, www.theoldglobe.org)

 

The bands scheduled to perform at the Jeff Buckley Tribute Concert include Jeff Berkley, Israel Maldonado and Fernando Apodaca with Todd Hannigan, Veronica May, Eve Selis, The Sinclairs, Gayle Skidmore, Superunloader and Pete Thurston.  The concert will be emceed by Cathryn Beeks, host of KPRi-FM’s “The Homegrown Hour,” and Chris Cantore, U-T San Diego’s director of lifestyle & entertainment.

 

“Jeff Buckley’s music is as powerful as it is beautiful, and all of us at the Globe are counting the days until we get to hear it on our stage in The Last Goodbye,” says artistic director Barry Edelstein. “In the meantime, I’m delighted that we’ll get to hear some of San Diego’s most exciting musicians go to town with Buckley’s songs and show America’s Finest City once again that its arts community — both onstage and in concert — is part of what makes the place so fine.”

 

Jeff Buckley was born in Orange County, California on November 17, 1966 and died in Memphis on May 29, 1997.  He had emerged in New York City’s avant-garde club scene in the 1990s as one of the most remarkable musical artists of his generation, acclaimed by audiences, critics and fellow musicians alike.  His one and only full-length, full-band studio album, Grace, released in 1994, includes his haunting cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”  Buckley and his band spent the following two years touring the world in support of the album, and though he was largely ignored by U.S. audiences, who were fully involved in the grunge movement, his sensitive and soaring vocals, virtuoso guitar and gripping performance style were critically acclaimed throughout Europe, the U.K. and Australia.  He was awarded France’s prestigious Grand Prix International du Disque de l’Académie Charles Cros in 1995, as well as platinum record plaques from France, the U.K. and Australia.  In May of 1997 in Memphis, on the verge of recording his second studio album, Buckley perished in an accidental drowning while taking a late-night swim in the Wolf River Marina.  The songs he had been working on were posthumously released as Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk in 1998, which received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance.  Today, Grace is ranked among the 500 greatest albums of all time by Rolling Stone magazine, and Buckley’s recording of “Hallelujah” was voted number one among the top 100 vocal performances of all time by Mojo magazine (U.K.).