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.
Really great pic BTW. Trade you a song for it if you’ve got a higher res.
I’m torn between admiration and hope for the fact that they can get away with this and th’ nitpicking of a professional suspicion of laziness. But in th’ end, it’s really their thing and always has been. It’s not like they’re advertising metamucil and delivering kaopectate.
It’s funny, I never feel much contempt for a band that doesn’t interact with the audience that much. I know where that comes from. I think any performer that doesn’t feel just every so often that the audience is by and large convulsing and contemptible worm is either dishonest or just a lot better adjusted than me.
What does, however, sometimes grind on me is a band that doesn’t interact with *each other*.
Sometimes an artist comes up with a thing that is really beautiful and imagistically well-conceived but that just doesn’t stand up to an hour-and-a-half on stage. I mean, think what a bunch of morans they’d look like pogoing to “Murder, Tonight, In Th’ Trailer Park”.
Actually…
Beautiful stuff all th’ same. I saw them a million years ago at the Iron Horse in Northampton MA and it was fairly transfixing. I could see them sort of disappearing in too big a venue.
i’ll post the original pic for you, when i get home tonight (here). but, sadly, the quality is ass. we were far enough away that i couldn’t get a sharp shot with the little camera – couldn’t hold the little thing as still as i needed to.
yeah, i don’t think they’re lazy; they just play slow introspective songs while sitting down. you could tell the guitar and mandolin players were into it, but they just didn’t include the audience in their process the way a typical band does. and Margot’s vocals are actually more expressive live than on record. and you’re right – they’d look silly running around fist-pumping and grimacing while playing that stuff.
yeah, smaller is better with them. this wasn’t a big theater, but still bigger than the Cat’s Cradle where we saw them last time. there was probably a hundred people and Mrs C got to sit on the stage. wish i had a camera that night.