Review: Madison Violet - ABC2, Glasgow

THE pH value of tears, said Brenley MacEachern, differs depending on whether the tears being cried stem from physical or emotional pain.

Clearly MacEachern and Lisa MacIsaac, Torontonian country-folk duo Madison Violet, are experts in such matters. Certainly, plenty of eyes would have been moistened by the end of this delicate, heartfelt show.

The pair couched heartbreak amid warmth and friendly humour, playing a pair of acoustic guitars or one guitar and a fiddle. They paid tribute to MacEachern’s hundred-year-old grandmother, a former lighthouse keeper, during the bittersweet Christy Ellen Francis and the town where the singer was raised – Kincardine, Ontario – with Small of My Heart. The song ended with a stunningly unamplified harmony between the duo and their audience, from whom MacIsaac had elicited a “good Scottish ‘ooh’”.

The Best Part of Your Love was played in honour of anyone who’d known someone “who had a stronger relationship with the drink than they did with you”, while Fallen By the Wayside was written with their “good friend and tobogganing buddy”, Ron Sexsmith.

What had been a pleasant and sweet-hearted gig, however, took a turn into heart-wrenching emotion with The Woodshop, written, says MacEachran, after the murder of her brother, and Crying – “It’s not a bad world, brother… it’s all about crying your eyes out” – which was apparently conceived while supporting Hothouse Flowers in this very venue.

And then The Good in Goodbye offered one last singalong, lest the sadness threaten to overwhelm us.

RATING: ****