Madison Violet: St Bonaventure's

Tuesday 2nd February 2010

This is a Crackerjack review of Madison Violet. Do you agree? Rate and review this event.

Crackerjack rating: 8 / 10.

A glossy monthly lifestyle magazine recently listed 100 best reasons to love Bristol and this venue was, perhaps surprisingly, the only music venue to make the top 50.

It is because of gigs like this one that this unlikely venue earns such accolades.

For, although Madison Violet have been making waves on both sides of the Atlantic, picking up the Vocal Group of The Year trophy at the latest Canadian Folk Music Awards, the duo are hardly what you might call household names.

And yet the always knowledgeable St Bons crowd packed the place.

First up was support act Sarah Class, an Emmy-nominated composer who is also making a name for herself in her home city as a singer-songwriter.

Accompanied by Emily Teague and guitarist Jerry Crozier Cole, her songs were well crafted and, while her voice is not particularly strong, she also sings well.

Madison Violet opened with The Ransom, a song about a couple on the road who are not getting on, an odd choice as Brenley MacEachern and multi-instrumentalist Lisa MacIsaac seemed so at ease with each other it was hard to imagine that they weren’t related.

It also highlighted just how similar are their breathy voices, particularly when singing wonderfully close harmonies.

The songs that followed were, like The Ransom, mostly taken from their widely acclaimed new album No Fool For Trying. The songs tended towards the melancholy, their singing was quietly beautiful and their melodies softly lilting, but their lyrics sometimes had a much harder edge. The Best Part Of Your Love for instance was about being in a relationship with someone who likes alcohol just as much as he does you.Baby In The Black And White was, as you’d expect, about being arrested which MacEachern admitted was written from personal experience.Cryin’ was greeted with a loud cheer as was the highly catchy Small Of My Heart which had the audience singing in harmony, which is no small feat with a Bristol audience on a Monday night.

The most moving point of the night however was The Workshop, which MacEachern explained was about the tragic death of her brother. 

There were, of course, also some dips into their back catalogue, to the days when they were called Madviolet, including their riches-to-rags song Skylight, the lovely Sore Heart and Never Saw The Ending, as well as Haight Ashbury from their very first album.Men Who Love Women Who Love Men was nicely tongue in cheek.Despite both girls being fine songwriters there were some cover versions as well. They made Suzie Boguss’ Hammer And Nail sound like it was one of their own songs as indeed they managed to do with a slightly angry version of Simon And Garfunkel’s Mrs Robinson.There were two covers of songs by Canadian music giant Gordon Lightfoot, Poor Little Alison in the main set and Sundown as the first of their much deserved two-song encore.

Lovely voices, superb harmonies and great musicianship delightfully served up by two charming and bubbly singers.

Keith Clark

This is a Crackerjack review of Madison Violet. Do you agree? Rate and review this event.