A luminous moment with Luke De Sciscio

Luke De Sciscio is fortunate, or perhaps touched by a certain grace to breathe new life into a soul that left the rock pantheon far too soon. The English singer‑songwriter from Bath had already set foot in Geneva before the 2020 lockdown, discovering then the discreet significance of the Genevan festival Antigel. Tonight, stepping onto the stage of the Douze Dix‑Huit theatre in the international quarter of Le Grand-Saconnex, a stone’s throw from the Inter‑Parliamentary Union, he makes a point of stating that he is not Jeff Buckley but he will honour his memory. The room chuckles gently: no one expects him to be Buckley, yet everyone hopes he might rekindle, if only for a heartbeat, that fragile spark.

The opening song — Everybody Here Wants You, lifted from Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk — thaws the timid, restrained atmosphere. Luke’s warm, bearded voice slowly settles into the theatre’s intimate acoustics. He follows with It’s Never Over. As the first notes rise, one senses the mountain he has to climb: Buckley was not merely a voice, but a flexibility of being, a constant wavering between strength and vulnerability. Luke approaches it with sincerity.

The third piece, slower, deconstructs and rebuilds itself like a hesitant wave. Opened Once first appears fragmented, stripped of its natural casing. Yet Luke De Sciscio possesses that rare ability to make words resonate, to draw from a verse an inner tremor:
“just like the ocean always in love with the moon…”
He lets the syllables drift, like a tide held back.

He resumes the same contemplative slowness to begin a track from Jeff’s first studio album. The intensity is late to emerge, but the song eventually finds its natural rhythm. Buckley’s perilous high‑pitched inflections are delivered here with disarming precision.

Between songs, he jokes about the local fondue served before the show — a dish artists accept politely, knowing full well the digestive labour it entails. It clearly sits a little heavy, and Luke seems momentarily off balance. Jacket discarded, he scans faces, lingers on expressions. Grace. The riff. The intro. He must start again twice: entering the song is difficult, a reminder of how high Buckley set the bar among the most challenging artists to cover. To shift tone within a single line is vocal tightrope‑walking.

For a moment, the singer appears lost within this foundational hymn — the first single broadcast worldwide on FM radio, the title track of a record now considered one of the great masterpieces of the ’90s. Yet the audience pays little mind to these small technical stumbles, these hesitant brakes. They are right — the best is yet to come.

Luke then pays homage to New York. “By playing a tribute to Jeff Buckley, I think it was the first time that I could actually say « I made it », you see what I mean,” he says. Later in the show he will summarize “I’ve made seventeen albums — like a diary, little time capsules… But beign here singing those songs… well, Jeff’s vibe is beautiful.”

Inhabiting the space

He dives into Mojo Pin. Its magical, ethereal introduction floats through the theatre. This time, Luke De Sciscio fully inhabits the space. The work on the voice, the poise, the reverb — everything is measured, placed with delicate precision. Each sound becomes an offering.

In this vibrating silence, Jeff Buckley seems to return for a moment — not through imitation, but through resonance. A rendition of All Flowers in Time Bend Towards the Sun, his duet with Elizabeth Fraser, brings the audience together in a chorus sung as one — a luminous moment.

Near the end of the show, Luke removes his shoes, digresses, and slips in two songs from his own, more folk‑leaning repertoire. R.O.B.Y.N hits the mark: a true and sensitive interpretation, though a lingering Buckley‑esque aura remains.

Finally comes Hallelujah, with its outsized aura. Leonard Cohen wrote it, but it was Jeff Buckley who made it soar. The finale lives up to its legend: the audience seizes a moment of rare grace — that long‑awaited communion.

Luke will strike again, with more songs from a deep and rich repertoire of Jeff or of his own, in Geneva after all, don’t we all say « jamais deux sans trois » too.

David Glaser