Cowboy Junkies – Massey Hall, Toronto, ON – February 23, 2008
Cowboy Junkies Mining for Gold Revisited
Heartbreaker was revisited on October 10th of last year at London’s Royal Albert Hall when Ryan Adams joined the Cowboy Junkies. Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of The Trinity Session, they performed the album in its entirety, bringing back memories and feelings of when this seminal album was first recorded and captured live at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Toronto on November 27th 1987.
Gold could have been a revisited possibility last Saturday night for a change, but it was not meant to be. Ryan Adams must have had a dozen other things on his mind that night, maybe silicosis was taking hold. Ryan would have sung 200 More Miles, bringing his personality and own perspective, just like he did when he, Natalie Merchant and Vic Chesnutt were made honorary Junkies when The Trinity Session was revisited and recorded as Trinity Revisited in 2007.
The evening’s only shift started with Margo Timmins’ a cappella read of Mining for Gold. Standing in line was Jeff Bird’s harmonica, surfacing to an ovation on Misguided Angel. Margo explaining after the song, “it was twentysome years ago that we went into a church to record this album and as my Mom said, our lives were never the same after that. It was a very good day.” Saturday night was a night for the Cowboy Junkies’ family.
Michael Timmins’ meticulous guitar playing was joined by Jeff’s excellent harmonica playing on Blue Moon Revisited (Song for Elvis), Margo’s haunting vocals, younger brother Peter (drums), and bassist Alan Anton, along with Jaro Czwewinec on accordion. Both Jeff (harmonica, mandolin and fiddle) and Jaro (accordion) played on the original album. The musicianship made this a magical night, a blessed trinity getting acquainted with a hall instead of a church.
It was during the encore that Margo told the audience “there’s a man … Neil Young … that pretty much wrote the soundtrack of my life” continuing “my little brothers always played his albums” before singing Young’s Powderfinger. There would be no version of Ryan Adams’ In My Time Of Need on this night. The Cowboy Junkies came, played, and this time, the hall, did the rest.
Setlist
Mining For Gold
Misguided Angel
Blue Moon Revisited (Song For Elvis)
I Don’t Get It
I’m So Lonesome I could Cry
To Love Is To Bury
200 More Miles
Dreaming My Dreams With You
Working On A Building
Sweet Jane
Postcard Blues
Walking After Midnight
Encore
Powderfinger
My Little Basquiat
‘Cause Cheap Is How I Feel
Sun Comes Up, It’s Tuesday Morning