Billed as An Evening With Cowboy Junkies: Celebrating 40 Years, the description of a 'celebration' in reference to a Cowboy Junkies show may at first seem incongruous.
At one point during their Adelaide concert at Woodville Town Hall (20 November), singer Margo Timmins makes a joke that even though their songs may not be intended to sound a certain way, "it always comes out sad".
On this occasion, it is somewhat appropriate the band pick up almost from where they left off at The Gov (February 2023), beginning their set with a song that nearly ended their last set, 'Misguided Angel'.
Margo is in much better health than she was then, having lost her voice momentarily while struggling to get through the song and on that occasion was propped up by audience support.
While Margo remains the focal point of the band, onstage to her right is brother Michael hunched over and cradling his guitar and long-time collaborator Jeff Bird mostly taking lead on mandolin among other instruments.
On her left is the rhythm section of her younger brother Pete on drums and a stoic Alan Anton on bass, the only member to remain stranding for the entire set.
While 'Misguided Angel' is a fine example of their oeuvre, perhaps a more thematically fitting song to open their set would have been the second performed, the near spoken word 'Sun Comes Up, It's Tuesday Morning'.
Having been seated for the duration of these early songs from their second and third albums respectively, Margo stands up and looks out into the audience commenting, "while I can't see your faces, I see a lot of white hair," and she's right as this is the demographic that these forty-year veterans attract.
Now a few songs in, she comments that Woodville Town Hall is "much better than the place we played at last time". I'm sure this is no slight against The Gov, it's just that over time the band have become more used to playing hall-like venues.
She takes a moment to introduce their most recent songs, a trio from 'Such Ferocious Beauty' released 30 years later (in 2023 after they last toured Australia). These and the later played 'Hell Is Real' and 'Shadows 2' are a meditation and processing of grief and loss in relation to their father's dementia and eventual passing.
She comments they'll get back to their older songs afterwards and is almost apologetic for playing these songs from their last, latest album but she need not have been as following 'What I Lost', 'Hard To Build Easy To Break' garners an early rousing applause probably not least for Bird's searing mandolin playing.
Margo informs us that the last of these three from 'Such Ferocious Beauty', 'Circe And Penelope', is a take on Greek mythology and is her favourite song off the album, and gives the song an introduction that is nearly half as long as the song itself before it is "dedicated to anyone who had someone sail off on them".
Margo loses herself in the opening to 'A Common Disaster', but the band play on and then this first, shorter set concludes with their ambient blues take on John Lee Hooker' 'Forgive Me' from their 1986 debut 'Whites Off Earth Now!'.
The second set opens with 'The Things We Do To Each Other', which almost segues into the opening of the next song although the intro, like an abstract electric orchestra tuning up, is almost a song unto itself before the song actually begins, the audience cheering as they suddenly recognise it as the band's calling card 'Sweet Jane'.
While the Velvet Underground's 1969 live version has long been the template for their version, Michael's buzz-saw guitar soloing employed is a callback to some of Lou Reed's more abrasive live renditions.
The band are a microcosm of their forebears and influences, and while a cursory listen might convey the impression they're country and blues traditionalists (their 1986 debut 'Whites Off Earth Now!' consisted almost entirely of covers), occasionally Michael does throw a curve ball such as this intro to 'Sweet Jane' with his abstract instrumental asides while Bird is simpatico in exercising his musical skills – a later played exemplary 'Just Want To See' has Jeff shredding on mandolin.
When they last played in Adelaide they paid tribute by performing Townes Van Zandt's 'Rake', but on this occasion it's their own contemporary 'Townes' Blues' that gets an airing, an autobiographical tale of the band's tour with their eponymous idol, Margo preceding the song by recommending the audience search him out if they are unfamiliar.
On another song from 'Such Ferocious Beauty', 'Hell Is Real', Jeff adds another instrument to his repertoire for the evening, the melodica. Alan and Pete then leave the stage and Margo introduces an acoustic portion of the set with 'River Waltz', which she describes as "three minutes of happiness," before 'A Horse In The Country' and their final selection from 'Such Ferocious Beauty', "another song about Dad," ‘
'Shadows 2'.
After this acoustic diversion, the reconvened band perform another song from their debut album, 'Lightnin' Hopkins' 'Shining Moon'; then during 'Just Want To See', Jeff's mandolin soloing gradually builds to dominate the instrumentation.
As the set nears an end, the band perform the mid-period 'Good Friday', Margo belatedly introducing all the band members properly, thanking the audience for buying tickets before introducing herself: "I am Margo Timmins and we are Cowboy Junkies."
After 'Blue Moon Revisited (Song For Elvis)' the band leave the stage but come back to encore with ''Cause Cheap Is How I Feel' and 'Walking After Midnight' to bring the evening to a satisfying close.
While there is a certain melancholy to their material and performance, ultimately a Cowboy Junkies show is a joyous uplifting experience – as the audience on this occasion would attest.
