Madison Violet and The John Henrys

On May 15th, we went to our second Rogue Folk Club concert with two friends. The concert was at the St James Hall in Vancouver, and was the reason I'd first come across the RFC a few months ago - I wanted to see the headline act, Madison Violet. I was NOT disappointed!!!

The hall was more crowded this time, and we ended up in the front row of the balcony. It was hot up there, but they were great seats!



First we heard The John Henrys - a five-piece, alt-country, folk-rock band from Ottawa. Here are some photos of them, and a video of them performing the title track of their latest album, White Linen...









Then on to the real attraction: Madison Violet, an extremely talented folk duo consisting of Brenley MacEachern and Lisa MacIsaac. Brenley plays guitar and banjo, and Lisa plays guitar, fiddle and mandolin. They are based in Toronto and have been collaborating for 10+ years.

I already had Madison Violet's latest CD, No Fool For Trying, and was very impressed that their live performance (with no backing musicians) sounded really similar to the CD. They can definitely play, and their harmonies are amazing! Here are some photos of their performance...









And here are some videos - I couldn't narrow it down to just one! Our Canadian readers may be interested to note that Lisa (the brunette) is the sister of controversial fiddle player Ashley MacIsaac (the main fiddler from the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Opening Ceremonies), which makes a lot of sense in the context of the third video below. They have three cousins who are touring fiddlers too!

(By the way, we are trying something new with the videos in our blog. These ones have been uploaded to YouTube and then embedded in this blog post, so you can click the "four arrows" button at the bottom right of a video to watch it full screen.)

At the end, Madison Violet and The John Henrys teamed up for a couple of songs.





And that was another excellent night thanks to the Rogue Folk Club!

Click here to listen to The John Henrys on MySpace.
Click here to listen to Madison Violet on MySpace.