Perfect harmonies highlight Madison Violet’s latest night in Sharbot Lake

Craig Bakay | Dec 11, 2019

AFTER 20 years of playing together as Madison Violet, Lisa MacIsaac and Brenley MacEachern have it down. In particular, they have the harmonies down.

They’re up there with Simon & Garfunkel, Lennon & McCartney, Crosby, Stills & Nash.

And that started right from the beginning.

“Lisa auditioned for my band (Zoebliss) one night in Toronto,” MacEachern said. “She was only playing fiddle at that time.

“So, she came over to my place and I put some guitar and vocals on a looper.

“I went upstairs to get us a drink and I heard this incredible harmony to my tracks.

“It was her.”

That band broke up but as a duo they’ve continued on through nine albums, numerous awards and nominations and a constant touring schedule. They just returned from three weeks in Germany and stopped in to The Crossing Pub in Sharbot Lake Friday night. This was their third or fourth time in town, Nobody seems to remember.

But nobody that was there Friday night will forget those harmonies.

It might be surprising that their music is so folk-oriented given that both have Maritime music roots.

Yes, MacIsaac is Ashley MacIsaac’s sister but she is not Natalie MacMaster’s cousin.

“Natalie lived maybe five houses down and we did go to the same school,” MacIsaac said. “Route 19 was full of fiddlers and we all learned from Stan Chapman.”

MacEachern was born in Montreal and grew up in Kincardine, ON. But her father is from Craigmore, NS.

“Mom can’t sing to save her soul but my father is the singer in the family,” she said.

MacIsaac said that while she grew up on Maritime music and Scottish fiddle tunes (as well as an admitted affinity for the song The Cat Came Back), “I wanted something different so I moved away when I was 19.”

Landing in Toronto, she fell in with the folk scene there and just sort of grew into it naturally.

“When you play a lot of folk festivals, you pick up a lot of things,” she said.

Curiously, one festival they’ve never played is Blue Skies, but they’d like to.

“I’ve heard it’s a lot of fun,” MacIsaac said.

They’d fit right in.

While there were a couple of tables of locals Friday night, most of the audience seemed to be from Ottawa, Brockville, or just elsewhere, opting to spend the night at the Inn after taking in the show.

Clearly, the audience was full of fans and the evening turned into bit of live by request as the girls seemed only too happy to oblige said requests.

In fact, in a crowd-pleasing twist, they even ventured into the audience, saving their (arguably) biggest tune, Crying, for an encore before finishing up with 99 Red Balloons.

Hell, they even covered The Stones earlier on in the evening (Wild Horses).