Last night at Wolf Trap Amphitheater, in the Virginia suburbs outside Washington, DC, The Cowboy Junkies and Shawn Colvin split the bill, allowing equal time for a mellow evening of acoustic folk and smokey, simmering, sultry jams.

The Cowboy Junkies are out on the road this summer on the "Long Journey Home" tour supporting their new album One Soul Now, which they played several tunes from.

We even got a Grateful Dead cover. On the Cowboy Junkies Discussion Board Poartes posted a setlist which included: Crescent Moon, Get It, Long Journey, To Lay Me Down, Stars, Notes, Hunted, Anniversary Song, Misguided Angel, Caution Horses, Slide, Trinity, Cause Cheap Is How I Feel, Oregon Hill, To Live Is To Fly, Pity.

Margo Timmins (photo) covered Neil Young's "Helpless" to close the show. Margo introduced the song by saying this is by a "great fellow Canadian songwriter". Delivered in the Junkies characteristically slow burn style, or as washingtonpost.com writer Geoffrey Himes says: "her deep, smoky alto can cap off a conversational phrase by holding out a note with enough vibrato and throaty yearning to cast a mesmerizing spell." "Helpless" also gave the band members including the Timmins brothers and Jaro Czerwinec and Jeff Bird each a chance to solo & shine as they had all evening.

The show opened with Shawn Colvin. Apparently, Colvin & CJ split the bill, each performing for about 90 minutes. Shawn performed a mix of newer and older material including "Sonny" and some tunes from Whole New You. Shawn gave us tuning demonstration about midway that probably went longer than most folks needed. But, all in all, a great double-bill concert at one of the finest outdoor sheds in the country.

An interesting footnote on the tour from the band's Tour Diary regarding the Philadelphia (July 9, 2004) concert:

"Tonight was about as perfect as it gets. Great audience, excellent sound and we all delivered. It was a fantastic night of music for both us and the audience. The Instant Live people were suppose to be here tonight to tape the show, but their van and all of their equipment was stolen this morning from the parking lot of their hotel. I think the heist was the start of a taper conspiracy to rid the concert scene of this growing trend.

The one negative note on the night was the fact that the concert wasn't sold out. We were warned by our booking agent at the start of the tour that the concert business was in shambles. With the industry experiencing declining CD sales and now declining concert gates, things are looking a little uncertain for us old rockers."

Hmmm, "a taper conspiracy to rid the concert scene of this growing trend." I don't think so. More like a desperate move by the record labels but definitely not a "taper conspiracy". As for the "concert business in shambles", maybe the high cost of tickets is catching up with the industry and fans are voting with their feet???

Concert photos on Thrasher's Blog.