Saw the Cowboy Junkies Friday night at the Carolina Theater in Durham.

Here's a little free advice: if you're going to a C.J. show, don't eat a big meal right before, and take it easy on the beer, too. Because, when they start their slow-motion version of I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry (even slower than their Trinity Session version), the last thing you need is a warm sleepy feeling creeping up on you. And don't think you'll be OK because you'll be "watching" them - only the bass player actually stands, and he doesn't move or interact with the audience. The guitar player sits and looks at the floor the whole show; the mandolin/harmonica player spends most of the show with his back to you; the singer sits in her tall chair, singing lullabys and slow sad love songs from her lonesome dream world. She's interesting, but soothing. So, with all that not going on, you really don't need any additional sedation. Eat a light meal, instead. I didn't. Should have. Had to fight off the sleepies.

Still, it was a good show. They did a lot of stuff from the Trinity Session and those other early albums - all very nice. I think my favorite was their final song of the night, Misguided Angel, with just guitar, harmonica and Margot. They also did a lot of new stuff. I don't have their last couple of records, and so all that stuff was unfamiliar and, frankly, a little harder to get into - they're still unmistakably Cowboy Junkies' songs, but they've got more of that long, slow, feedbacky, noodly jam in them. But, I've been a fan for a long time, and they didn't do anything to change that.

I should probably get those new records - but not from their website, because that's illegal.