<p>Mrs. wharfrat2 and I saw them for the first time last night. Really nice, if understated show. It was their last night of the tour. Got a really sweet Black-Eyed Man, Working on a Building, and a great mid-show acoustic set. Truly great Misguided Angel encore followed by Murder in the Trailer Park.</p>
<p>At any rate, I highly recommend catching them if you get the chance.</p>
<p>I was the world’s biggest Cowboy Junkies fan when Trinity Sessions came out. It was really the beginning of my re-engagement with American popular music after a decade of not really listening much, and I actually bought my first CD player so I could get “Working On A Building” (which wasn’t on the LP). I was talking it up all the time, and my growing-up best friend – who was in the process of quitting his job to become an Outward Bound instructor – spent four months in the wilderness with Trinity Sessions (on casette) as his only music. I saw them play three times, the last in 2000 (I think).</p>
<p>I gradually got bored with them, however. I thought they were brilliant interpreters, but that Michael Timmins really wasn’t a stong enough songwriter, and Margot Timmins not a dynamic enough singer, to sustain interest over time. Plus, they moved fairly quickly away from what excited me at first – a sort of psychedelic, deconstructive minimalism, prefiguring both alt-country and trip-hop – to become a more-or-less standard folk-rock singer-songwriter operation. It doesn’t surprise me much that the highlights you mention are all from the early part of their career, 15-20 years ago. No song later than “Anniversary Song” has stuck with me.</p>
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<p>That’s what I thought until I started watching DVDs of some recent live shows and saw them live last summer. This is going to sound really odd, but their live show is the closest thing I’ve ever heard to pre-Dark Side of the Moon Pink Floyd. They do some very atmospheric out-there stuff. Almost a little spooky. I never really “got” Michael Timmins more atonal feedback oriented guitar playing until hearing it live made sense. The dynamic range this band gets is stunning from pin-drop quiet to wall of feedback to pin-drop quiet. Live, you close your eyes and walk out two hours later like you’ve been in a trance. They are the most psychedelic band around and throw in enough of their old classics to keep the shows moving along with some toe-tapping.</p>
<p>The sounds that Jeff Bird gets from his electric mandolin are amazing. The drummer brother and the bass player lay down grooves that come from 20 years of playing together and roll along like a lazy river behind the psychedelic jams. They are a terrific live band.</p>
<p>They are like most bands as far as songwriting. A couple good ones per album. I’m actually really fond of some songs on their most recent albums like Follower 2 on their most recent album, which left me spellbound live. They’ve also been doing some almost violent slow blues songs like *Lay it Down *or He Will Call You Baby or *Cutting Board *on their newest album or a cover of Springstreen’s State Trooper.</p>
<p>As always, their covers are fantastic. George Harrison’s Isn’t It a Pity. Neil Young’s Helpless.</p>
<p>There’s a live CD/DVD of a Liverpool concert in 2004 called Long Journey Home: Live in Liverpool that is terrific. The new re-recording of Trinity Sessions *Trinity Revisited *is one of the best music DVDs ever made. Ryan Adams is so good on it.</p>
<p>Or, for a free sample, here’s a well recorded show from last summer in Maine from the Live Music Archive:</p>
<p>[Internet</a> Archive: Details: Cowboy Junkies Live at Stone Mountain Arts Center on 2008-08-01](<a href=“http://www.archive.org/details/cj2008-08-01.aud.flac16]Internet”>Cowboy Junkies Live at Stone Mountain Arts Center on 2008-08-01 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive)</p>
<p>Well, it sounds like they’ve been going back to doing what they did at the outset of their career. You are practically describing their pre-Trinity sound on *Whites Off Earth Now<a href=“except%20for%20Jeff%20Bird,%20who%20wasn’t%20part%20of%20the%20band%20then,%20and%20wasn’t%20with%20them%20the%20last%20time%20I%20saw%20them,%20either”>/i</a>. I still like Whites a lot. It has the cover of “State Trooper”, and its versions of Lightin Hopkins’ “Shining Moon” and John Lee Hooker’s “Decoration Day” are bone-chilling. They weren’t anything like that in the 90s. I’ll have to check that stuff out.</p>
<p>It struck me last night, how much Michael Timmins’ guitar work reminds me of the late Mikey Houser of Widespread Panic. Not a copycat by any means, but stylistically very similar.</p>
<p>It’s interesting (to me anyway), I left the Birchmere, one of the best music venues anywhere IMO thinking, “What a nice show.” Nothing awe inspring, just nice. The more I think back on it though the more and more my thoughts are growing toward being very impressed. There’s an almost ethereal quality to Margo Timmins’ voice that upon reflection really sticks with me.</p>
<p>I should add they did a lot of new stuff last night. Margo said they had been writing a lot and were getting ready to go back into the studio soon.</p>
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<p>I think that’s correct. The 90s were the last of their record label albums with a lot of searching for more heavily produced and overdubbed stuff with commercial appeal. The last few albums are not like that at all.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a huge fan of their studio albums. They are a live band and the studio albums serve mostly as an entry point for new material working its way into the live shows to be developed.</p>
<p>wharf2: I had gotten the *Long Journey Home *live DVD and been very impressed with the show. When we got tickets to see them, I started downloading recent live shows to get more familiar with the material the’ve been playing. So I had a pretty good feel for what to expect and had a passing familiarity with the new stuff.</p>
<p>If you want to hear some nice singing, the harmonies between Margo Timmins and Ryan Adams on Trinity Revisited are outstanding. They do an awesome Sweet Jane.</p>
<p>I was really hoping for a Sweet Jane last night, but no luck. Even so, my disappointment at no Jane was minimal given the overall quality of the show. The Misguided Angel encore was very tasty indeed.</p>
<p>Here’s the complete setlist</p>
<p>The song list consisted of Crossroads, Shining Moon, Common Disaster, Girl Behing The Man, Black Eyed Man, Something More Besides You, Hold On, Confession of Georgia E, Working On A Building, Blue Eyed Savior, Rake, This Street, That Man, This Life, Fairytale, I Don’t Get It, Brave New World and Lay It Down. The two song encore consisted of Misguided Angel and Murder In The Trailor Park.</p>
<p>“This Street etc.” is probably my very favorite Michael Timmins song (or at least in the running with “To Love Is To Bury” and “Misguided Angel”). I never heard them play it live. It’s nice that they’re doing it these days. (I never heard them do “To Love Is To Bury”, either. On the other hand, I never heard them NOT do “Misguided Angel”.)</p>
<p>I heard *To Love is To Bury *at the show I attended last summer. Margo talked about this song in the interviews on the Trinity Revisited DVD. She said that the original *Trinity *version was a one-shot deal. She never could figure out how she sung it or capture the song again outside of that church.</p>
<p>Natalie Merchant sings it on the Trinity Revisited DVD, playing piano in a stripped down duet with Jeff Bird on fiddle. Margo said at our show that she loves Natalie Merchant’s version and has been inspired to perform Natalie’s version in the live shows for the first time ever. I think she sings it fairly often now.</p>
<p>They had an audience “vote” for the final encord at the show I went to. My favorite, “Walking after Midnight” lost to “Working on a Building” in the voting. I did, however, get to hear *“I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”, *which is probably my favorite Junkies cover. Margo and Ryan Adams and Jeff Bird tear that one up on Trinity Revisited, too.</p>
<p>I loved The Trinity Sessions, but haven’t really kept up with them. I don’t know why.</p>
<p>I couldn’t take the slow pace. Kept falling asleep. Really.</p>