Review by Giddy Pillai
Katie Noonan and I have something in common. We both fell head over heels for Jeff Buckley when we were teenagers. She was lucky enough to see him live in 1996, a year before he died, at the Seagull Club up at Tweed Heads. I was a little later to the party. When I was 14 my first boyfriend tried to win me over with a copy of Grace – the only studio album Buckley got to recording. From the opening seconds of Mojo Pin I was mesmerised. To say I was won over is an understatement (also this guy hid handwritten notes hidden all through the lyric booklet which was all kinds of adorable). The relationship may not have lasted, but for me, a lifelong love affair had begun. Grace got under my skin and right into my bones - the first album to speak to me on a soul level. Through it I discovered Leonard Cohen and Nina Simone, deep loves who, like Jeff, have stayed with me through my life. My dad introduced me to Tim Buckley – experimental psychedelic-folk icon and Jeff’s absent father – and I fell in love with his songs too. I had Grace on repeat as I studied for my law school exams, wishing I was anywhere else. I'm pretty sure it planted seeds that made me grow into a songwriter myself, all these years later.
I may have never got to experience Jeff Buckley live, but what a joy it was to experience Katie Noonan paying tribute to Grace on its 30th anniversary. I can't imagine there are many artists on earth with the guts and the skill to pull off a show like this. As a vocalist, Buckley has a place with the legends. He’s wildly expressive, dazzlingly dextrous, so connected that he seems almost infused with music. Grace is an hour-long trip full of wild artistry and pure passion – and, as Noonan breathlessly exclaims, ‘every song has a vocal range of about 5000 octaves’. But she too deserves a place with the legends. Breathtaking in agility and visceral in emotion, her voice scrapes the lowest lows then leaps to the highest highs, flipping effortlessly between raw, guttural tones and devastatingly angelic bell-like sounds. Like Buckley, she’s a phenomenally acrobatic vocalist, but it never feels like the point is to show off – rather, the vocal gymnastics are a conduit for what is essentially an hour of unadulterated feeling. I discover later that she says that Grace has been the single biggest influence on her musical journey. I’m not at all surprised.
With the albums I really love, I find that, even after countless listens, I seem to have a new experience every time. Songs that grabbed hold of my heart immediately can still manage to make me feel like I did when I first heard them, while songs that have always slipped under the radar for me can leap out years later and become new favourites. This is the feeling I have watching Noonan’s tribute. Her rendition of Hallelujah – the track that made me hold my breath for 7 minutes straight when I was 14 – hits me right in the heart, just like it did the very first time. This is all the more impressive given it’s a song that’s been covered so many times that it can feel like it’s impossible to put a new spin on it (it slipped under the radar when Leonard Cohen first released it in 1984, but soared in popularity after John Cale and Buckley released covers in the 1990s, and more than 300 artists have since released their own versions). My other favourite moments in Noonan’s tribute are her take on songs that have somehow never captured my full attention in my many (many, many) playthroughs of Grace. Her astounding vocal riffs at the end of So Real are more raw and more foregrounded than in Buckley’s version, and the effect is gut-wrenching. Her version of Eternal Life is an absolute banger. She really finds the fun in the song: the vocals are full of life, the lyrics seem to stand out more, and everyone on stage is perfectly in sync and seems like they’re having the time of their life.
Which brings me to Noonan’s band: Brandon Mamata and Matt Smith on guitars, Sarah King on violin and backing vocals, Steele Chabau on bass and Noonan’s son Dexter Hurren on drums. They’re phenomenal: magnetic, energetic and so tuned into each other. As a fan of Grace I really appreciate how their arrangements retain its iconic musical signatures, so my nostalgia feels satiated, while also adding in plenty of new shades and textures, so everything feels really fresh. It’s a perfect way to approach a homage. The show also owes a lot to beautiful sound design, which allows the loud moments to really swell and the intimate ones to really land, and striking lighting. Both help make the show feel like a truly polished live reimagining of Grace, rather than just a playthrough.
If this has read less like a review and more like the ravings of Katie Noonan's latest fangirl, then I've done an honest job and I apologise for nothing. Thank you, Katie, for this beautiful show. It’s one that’ll stay with me forever.
