Lay It Down, Lay It Down (Michael Timmins)
I'm So Open, Open (M. Timmins)
License to Kill, Early 21st Century Blues (Bob Dylan)
A Few Simple Words, Rarities, B-sides, and Slow, Sad Waltzes (M. & Margo Timmins)
I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, Trinity Sessions (Hank Williams)
Brothers Under the Bridge, Early 21st Century Blues (Bruce Springsteen)
Hunted, Pale Sun, Crescent Moon (M. Timmins)
He Will Call You Baby, One Soul Now (M. Timmins)
You're Missing, Early 21st Century Blues (Bruce Springsteen)
Black-Eyed Man, Black-Eyed Man (M. Timmins)
River, for a recent tribute concert (Joni Mitchell)
Just Want to See, Lay It Down (M. Timmins)
Miles from Our Home, Miles from Our Home (M. Timmins)
One, Early 21st Century Blues (U2)
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Townes' Blues, Black-Eyed Man (M. Timmins)
State Trooper, Whites Off Earth Now (Bruce Springsteen)
Sweet Jane, Trinity Sessions (Lou Reed)
I dosed myself with two blisteringly strong teas beforehand, plus since the Fox Theatre is enough like a nightclub that it has service on the floor, I had a coffee at the end of the opening act: With the doors opening at 8 and the first band onstage at 9, I expected the Junkies to begin approxmiately at my bedtime. I am writing this at 6:30 the next morning because the new alarm clock is working so well that I not only get up on time on weekdays but wake at 6:15 on weekends as well, whee. On weekends I can come back to bed, but it's perverse merely to be awake at this hour.
I had not been to the Fox Theatre before--the last time I was in Boulder at all might have been Kinetics at Boulder Reservoir in 2001 (the festival that year featured the Cowboy Junkies). Thank goodness I brought a book: doors opening at 8 with the opening band due at 9 meant idle standing around. I stood at the edge of the stage, reading Patricia Highsmith in red stage light, until Milton Mapes came on.
The name Milton Mapes was glancingly familiar, how I don't know and perhaps only from the marquee. My stance used to be that I couldn't get into live music I didn't know (and thus would rather dispense with opening acts); maybe because I see only the Cowboy Junkies these days and am more likely to like what they like, but I have liked almost everyone I've seen with them--Sarah Harmer, especially Tim Easton, and tonight Milton Mapes. Bluegrass and blues, good stuff.
Directly behind me were a pair of women desperately flirting with a man. They conducted their conversation throughout Milton Mapes despite frowning glances from me and a few others. Perhaps they thought Milton Mapes was like movie previews. Hint: wrong. The man said he'd been listening to the Junkies since 1981, a neat trick for someone who said he'd lived in Boulder his entire life and therefore not in Toronto, where they're from, when their first album was released in 1986. One of the women shrieked, "I"m a new Junkie! Only four years! But I love them so much!" I doubted she was in the band but glad to know she was such a fan because that meant she might shut the fuck up during the show. But no, and the glances turned into pointed and scowling glares, and "shhs." If you're at a show to hook up, back off from the stage: not rocket science. During a very quiet "You're Missing" with only Michael, Margo, and Jeff onstage, with a conversation about Stephen King and Boulder clearly audible--would I have minded so much if the women weren't up from Castle Rock (actual Colorado town, fictional Maine one) and Stand tourists?--I reached my breaking point, turned to touch the closest one on the arm, and said, "Would you please just stop talking?" I think they moved off after that.
I was the closest I'd ever been, actually leaning on the stage. Margo looked five years older, which was fine; I've seen Michael that close only once briefly but he looked about the same. The biggest change was to Pete. Was that Pete? Or was this a case of all humans looking alike to me? He was wearing glasses, and maybe that was it. He had hair, which was surprising enough, but it was silver and he looked older than his two older siblings. I recently saw U2 on "60 Minutes" and Larry Mullen, also the youngest of his quartet, has aged the least gracefully, so maybe this is usual for drummers. But it wasn't Pete: Margo said her little brother finally turned 40 and promptly threw his back out. I missed the substitute's name [ed. Randall Coryell]. Of course I could hear Michael count into the songs but for the first time I noticed how he gestured everyone else to spin out a passage, to wind up a percussion bit, to allow Jeff to jam on his electric mandolin, etc. (Electric mandolin. It works, oh yes it works, but it sounds only slightly less silly than "electric hammered dulcimer.") During "Hunted" and "Just Want to See" Jeff was, to borrow a word, incendiary.
They plan their sets, which is unfortunate, not least because I can learn the whole set beforehand if I look for and look at the playlist. Of course I did, and I jigged at "River," which I figured would be part of the River Song Trilogy. Nope! It was Joni Mitchell's "River," which they had recently sung at a Music For Youth, Joni Mitchell tribute show. When Margo introduced the song, I had forgotten what I'd read on the setlist, and hoped, momentarily, wildly, for "Don't Interrupt the Sorrow," which is possibly my second favorite song after "Sweet Jane"; for Margo to sing it would have blissed me into a coma. But it was "River," and though I don't know Mitchell's titles necessarily, the song I knew.
As usual, Margo made eye contact (and some conversation) with the crowd, and this time, with me. I don't care if it's for show but prefer to believe, as with lovely Italian skater Silvia Fontana, the smile that's part of the act becomes real because you do love the act. When her eyes met mine and I grinned joyfully, I like to think that her answering smile was truly in response. Plus, three times--after "One" as they left the stage, when they returned for "Townes' Blues," and when they left for good after my beloved "Sweet Jane," Michael looked right at me, back at me, and waved. They're my best friends!
A good show.
Previous shows:
This is the show I learned about the day afterward in 1999: I Saw Your Shoes, Cause Cheap is How I Feel, Southern Rain, A Few Simple Words, A Common Disaster, Five Room Love Story, Townes' Blues, Good Friday, The Highway Kind, Hunted, Misguided Angel, Those Final Feet, Sweet Jane, Miles From Our Home, To Live is to Fly, E: Blue Guitar, If You Gotta Go Go Now.
Edited to add that I am not going to read the message board on the Junkies' site again. I read setlists for Crested Butte, Telluride, and Aspen, and I don't like my jealousy. I had my show, and that's that. My hunch is that the crunchier artsier towns get better sets, and I note to myself to, in future, see them in Boulder in addition to or instead of Denver. Telluride, the most exclusive of the three--which is saying something--got two songs from Caution Horses, my beloved "Sun Comes Up" and PLT's favorite "Cheap Is How I Feel." But I got to see them and to hear "Sweet Jane": I had my jam today, and that another town got better jam shouldn't mar my own pleasure.