“Lifting your spirits,” teased Cowboy Junkies vocalist Margo Timmins in the band’s recent appearance at The Birchmere, “is not what we do.”
It wasn’t quite a joke, as it’s a true statement. “Upbeat” would not describe their music, which is deeply moody and full of heartache. Sonically, the Junkies accomplish this by combining two distinct musical traditions, both of which have plenty of sadness: the alternative and art-rock of Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground — whose “Sweet Jane” still occupies a central place in their setlist — and David Bowie, whose “Five Years” they covered in their encore, and the dusty Americana embodied by their late friend, the legendary Townes Van Zandt, whose “Rake” was featured in the second set.
Since they last appeared at The Birchmere before the pandemic, the Junkies have released two albums. The first, Ghosts, came out in 2020, and was made in response to the death of the Timmins siblings’ mother.
