"I always feel so rude at this venue -- I forget there's this whole other side," Cowboy Junkies singer Margo Timmins said Sunday night at the Dakota, apologizing for not facing the side of crowd to her right. "My mother brought me up better than that."
Of course, the audience throughout the intimate jazz haven felt more face-to-face with Timmins and her band of brothers than at their local theater shows of the past decade. This is one band that knows how to play a quieter, slower-stewing show without losing the power of a bigger, livelier performance. Stripped down to the core four members – guitarist/songwriter Michael Timmins, drummer Peter Timmins and bassist Alan Anton – the Canadian country-rock vets' second of two low-lighted sets played off the moodiness of Sunday's stormy weather and the warm acoustics of the room.
The first seven songs came off their new four-album suite, "The Nomad Series," a more experimental and organic/raw-sounding collection that has some of their best recordings in years. Two of them happen to be tunes by their late pal Vic Chesnutt, "See You Around" and "Square Room," both of which come from the all-Chesnutt tribute set "Demons" (highly recommended). After the latter tune's haunting references to suicide and alcoholism, the Junkies did nothing to lighten the mood, following it with their own dark and tortured new gems, "Continental Drift" and "Damaged From the Start."
As Margo promised at the start, the band eventually slid into older material – but not necessarily lighter-hearted fare. There was a brief respite with soft renditions of "Angel Mine" and "Hollow as a Bone," both of which were requests that Michael and Margo played as a duo (with help from lyrics sheets). The full band kicked back up into "Sweet Jane" -- played true to their original 1988 version, but with some wicked guitar licks spliced in -- followed by "Common Disaster," "Lay It Down," "Crescent Moon," "Misguided Angel," "Lost My Driving Wheel" and, for the encore, "Bea's Song" and "Blue Moon Revisited."
Margo admitted near the end of the night that she fell ill just before the first set on Sunday (and apparently had to go to the public bathroom to throw up; talk about getting intimate with your audience). But you never would have known it. For more reasons than that, it was a good thing this not one show where the singer had to jump around to entertain the crowd.
