Cowboy Junkies
Have a Long Journey Home and Find Their Happy Place
Margo Timmins - Vocals, Michael Timmins - Guitar, Peter Timmins -Drums, Alan Anton - Bass, Jeff Bell - Mandolin, Harmonica and percussion, Jaro Czerwinec - Accordion
Mountain Winery, Saratoga, CA 08.14.2004

If misery loves company, The Cowboy Junkies and their fans are happiest wallowing in the dark and light of their songs. Playing to a sold out crowd at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga, CA the Cowboy Junkies Long Journey Home tour opened with a more acoustic stripped down version of some of their songs. Margo and Michael performed “Misguided Angel” to start the night off. The duo gave the crowd a way to ease into the evening as the sun set on the vineyard hillside. Jeff and Jaro joined the group on stage for a four piece and played “He Will Call You Baby” and other tracks off their new album One Soul Now and some older favorites like “A Horse in the Country”. “The Slide” a refreshing, comfy old jeans type of new song, finished out the end of the acoustic set and the group took a short break in preparation for the full set to follow.
Returning to the stage in full numbers the beautiful soaring voice of Margo could be heard throughout the hills on “Blue Moon” and was a huge crowd favorite. Margo has such a great way of connecting with the audience, intimate, making everyone feel as though they are a welcome guest in her home, and you do feel at home listening to their music. Between songs she would tell the crowd stories of their travels with her child on her tour bus, how the Mountain Winery is definitely in their top five favorite venues to play, and dedicates a song to thank the fans who always bring her beautiful bouquets of flowers that surround her on stage.

The new tracks from their One Soul Now album are more guitar driven songs, Michael is writing great new material. More experimental, driving guitars by Michael and Alan, these new songs seemed to make Margo get up and dance and rock out. “Why This One?” was explosive, the guitars on the bridge were amazing and made you wonder if you were listening to something by the Cowboy Junkies or something off of the latest Radiohead album.

During the course of the evening the group performed several covers the Grateful Dead’s “To Lay Me Down”, an incredibly moving version of George Harrison’s “Isn’t It A Pity” and Robert Johnson’s “32-20 Blues”. Joking with the audience that one day long ago Michael had a happy day and wrote one song that was happy from beginning to end the band closed out the evening with “I Wear Your Ring”, and it was happy from beginning to end.

Until…

The band finished their evening off to return to their dressing rooms to find they had been robbed. Their tour diary on their website reads, “The only downer on the night was that after the show we discovered that we had been robbed of $7500. It was taken from Rob’s briefcase during the show from our supposedly secure dressing room. We found the empty pouch, that once held the money, in the backstage Men’s bathroom; definitely an inside job. If you happen to know anyone that was working the Winery show tonight and they happen to be flashing a rather large wad around….let us know. Damn all thieves.” What a sour ending to such a beautiful evening.

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