# Live at Sin-é

Live at Sin-é is a live EP by the American singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley, released on November 23, 1993, on Columbia Records. It was Buckley's first commercial release. It features four songs performed by Buckley at the Sin-é cafe in East Village, Manhattan. An expanded version, Live at Sin-é: (Legacy Edition), was released in 2003.

## Background

Buckley moved from Los Angeles to New York City in 1991, and performed regularly at Sin-é, a cafe in the East Village, Manhattan. The cafe drew writers and musicians including Allen Ginsberg, Iggy Pop, Paul Simon and Edie Brickell. Buckley would perform long experimental sets with his Fender Telecaster, incorporating covers by a range of artists. He built a following and attracted attention from major record labels.
In October 1992, Buckley signed a record contract with Columbia Records. Rolling Stone said Live at Sin-é, Buckley's first commercial release, was designed to "shrewdly market a hot new performer's street cred".

## Content

Live at Sin-é comprises performances of "Mojo Pin" and "Eternal Life", which both later appeared on Buckley's 1994 album Grace, plus covers of the 1968 Van Morrison song "The Way Young Lovers Do" and the Édith Piaf song "Je N'en Connais Pas la Fin".
In 2003, Columbia released the expanded reissue Live at Sin-é: (Legacy Edition). It contains more than two hours of additional music, including further songs from Grace, covers of songs by Morrison, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Nina Simone and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and Buckley's cover of "Hallelujah" (1984) by Leonard Cohen.

## Reception

Professional ratings :
| Review scores ||
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic | |
| Entertainment Weekly | C+ |
| Rolling Stone | |
| Slant Magazine | |
| Sputnikmusic | 5.0/5 |
In Rolling Stone, Paul Evans wrote that "this is music vast in suggestiveness" and that Buckley's original songs were "unified by yearning and an honest passion that refuses to inhibit intelligence". A negative review in Newsday likened Buckley's voice to Michael Bolton and wrote that he was derivative of "black idioms ... awkwardly reach[ing] for a balance of emotion and technique, eventually relying on sheer voice of will, oversinging, flaking out". Buckley was so upset by the review he stopped work on Grace for two days.
Reviewing the Legacy Edition for Rolling Stone in 2003, Karen Schoemer wrote: "It could be seen as an attempt to cash in on Buckley's tragic death in 1997, but it's too fascinating to be shrugged off." In the Sydney Morning Herald, Bernard Zuel wrote of the Legacy Edition that "there are times when you want him to shut up ... and times when musical excursions fall flat", but that the performances demonstrated "the power and grace that demanded attention ... you can't help but feel a shiver". In Pitchfork, Jeremy D. Larson wrote that "we hear possibility, someone so earnestly in love with the large-format spirit of music at time when Gen-X subversion laid like a choking fog over pop culture".

## Charts
### Weekly charts

Weekly chart performance for Live at Sin-é :
| Chart (1993) | Peak position |
| French Albums (SNEP) | 65 |
| Irish Albums (IRMA) | 58 |
| Italian Albums (FIMI) | 66 |
| UK Albums (OCC) | 101 |

### Year-end charts

Year-end chart performance for Live at Sin-é :
| Chart (2001) | Position |
| Canadian (Nielsen SoundScan) | 191 |