What do you do when your favourite band disbands?

You drive seven hours to Quebec and fly to Peru the next day. That's the Madison Violet Effect.

Next week, my wife and I have committed to the ultimate whirlwind: three nights camping at Bonnechere Provincial Park in the northern hinterland of Ontario; a concert and charcuterie (and another night camping) at the Little Red Wagon Winery in Shawville, Quebec and then a very hasty seven-ish hour retreat back home so we can reset and repack and drive in a totally different direction the next day. Pearson International airport has become our Kia Sportage’s default setting. From Toronto’s YYZ it will be zzzzz on an eight hour flight to Lima, Peru.

But let’s back up for a minute here. The original inspiration behind this condensed madness was our beloved band, Madison Violet. However, they are not fully to blame. Back in February, we learned that Lisa MacIsaac and Brenley MacEachern, the Canadian-rooted folk-indie-bluegrass backbone of Madison Violet, were celebrating their 25 year anniversary and, wah, disbanding after 25 years.

I feel like I should add a little braggy roadie cred here. Kim and I knew them waaay back when they were Mad Violet, circa 2000. The first time we saw them perform was on a pure whim after I spied their poster in The Reader’s Cafe, a go-to hub for coffee and used books (and the best cranberry oatmeal cookies) in Dunnville (Ontario).

For those who are unfamiliar with the one stoplight town at the muddy bottom of the Grand River, nothing cultural, arty or literary ever happens outside of Dunnville’s annual Mudcat (catfish) Festival. I strongly suspected that the Cape Breton-connected gals would be awesome and everything I hoped for just from their cool Worry the Jury album cover. If nothing else, superficially, they were foxy and easy on the eyes.

The band’s van broke down en route to Dunnville but when they arrived, flushed and brimming with 100% kinetic energy, they delivered. The exposed brick walls and bookshelves of the Reader's Cafe vibrated with their honeyed lyrics, guttural guitar chords and bone-deep hum of Lisa’s fiddle. We were all in.

Madison Violet performing with a local steelpan band in Grenada.

Since, Lisa and Brenley’s folk-pop smash-up discography (11 albums!) has reliably intertwined the classic themes of love, loss and home with storylines pulled directly from their deep east coast tap roots. Brenley’s distinct voice (think of the combined alluring purr of Kim Carnes, Demi Moore and Holly Hunter) and Lisa’s high-octane fiddle and violin riffs are unmatchable. It’s the kind of music quicksand that you long to be sucked into long after the standing ovation.

Kim and I would continue to follow the gals wherever they popped up--their albums became the soundtrack of our relationship. Their syrupy vocals of longing, desire and anticipation pumped out of Kim’s BMW on repeat two decades ago. I’ve run to the girls on repeat for endless miles on my iPod from Uganda to Uxbridge. Our inaugural egg nog laced with rum is rung in each December 1st with Madison Violet’s Christmas album, Sleigh Bells in the Snow.

Talk about precious cargo! Flying from Grenada to Toronto with guitars belonging to Lisa and Brenley.

Back in 2013, Kim and I nervously checked two of their guitars under our names on a flight back to Toronto from Maurice Bishop International Airport in Grenada after attending Madison Violet’s VIP concert at Le Phare Bleu in Calivigny Bay. Luckily, we were in the company of a dozen therapy cats and dogs who were returning home for Christmas with Canadian veterinarian students (attending Grenada’s St. George’s University) on the same flight.

The mesmerizing view from our Seafront Cottage at Le Phare Bleu Marina Resort in Calivigny Bay, Grenada.

In the last two decades (plus) we’ve seen Madison Violet perform all over the map from between the bookshelves at the Reader’s Cafe to a green beer-tinged St. Paddy’s fest at some dark and punky bar on Queen Street (Toronto) to a repurposed church (Revival House) and Relic Lobby Bar in Stratford (Ontario) to Toronto’s legendary venue, Hugh’s Room.

In Grenada, they performed with a steelpan band and headlined the annual dinghy concert where attendees raft up in front of the floating stage. To see them in such a unique environment—bobbing on a barge, set the concert-goer bar even higher.

This is what a marina mosh pit looks like at Le Phare Bleu’s annual Dinghy Concert. Here’s footage from Madison Violet’s debut dinghy performance.

Kim and I knew we wanted to see them perform somewhere memorable if it was going to be for the last time. We hope they will tease us with a Cher-style “Farewell Tour”. For those who haven’t followed the sequins and trains of Cher’s dress rehearsals, after her two-year “Farewell”, she returned with a “Dressed to Kill Tour” in 2014 and a “Here We Go Again Tour” from 2018 to 2020. Cher also snuck in a residency at Caesars Palace in Vegas from 2008 to 2011. I’m hoping for a long, drawn-out farewell by Madison Violet. They might be the only reason we’d go to Vegas.

Naturally, I read of Madison Violet’s disbandment two days before we were flying to Manila. As Kim and I quickly contemplated buying concert tickets for venues in Isle of Lewis, UK or Münster, Germany, the notion of a road trip to Quebec was appealing. “What about seeing them at the winery there?” Kim said and in the same breath, I paused my Manila microbrew research and looked up the Little Red Wagon.

“Little Red Wagon Winery is a fruit farm from the 40s with six acres of heritage Nordic grapes and it’s owned by a woman. Jennifer Dale is the winemaker. Whoa. They have 6,800 vines and make something called piquettes—it's a sparkling wine known as the ‘poor-man’s wine’ in Quebec.”

“Why don’t we camp along the way?” Kim started searching provincial parks in the Gatineau and Ottawa region and quickly latched on to Bonnechere Provincial Park. She turned her laptop to show me the sandy beach that hugs the edge of the park’s Round Lake. There were still sites available on the River Loop which is an Ontario camping miracle, especially in February. Ontario Parks allows campers to reserve five months in advance which means that in the midst of a January snow squall, you should be thinking about when you want to have S’mores.

“And, there are 297 bird species documented in the park,” Kim said, sealing the deal. So, as we split our focus between packing bikinis and binoculars for a month in the Philippines and Vietnam, we were suddenly, unexpectedly also booking a campsite for June and trying to contact the winery owner (as the Little Red Wagon was closed for the season) to see if we could reserve tickets before they were officially on sale. Kim and I are seasoned when it comes to last minute champagne-infused chaos.

Baked potatoes on the embers at The Mississagi Lighthouse & Campground, Manitoulin Island (Ontario).

We booked the impossibly perfect riverside campsite and sent an e-transfer for the winery concert tickets. Done. Well, done and dusted for a month. My former boss (but then-boss) at the adventure travel company I worked for told me I was laid-off two days after we had returned home from Vietnam. Followed by, “do you and Kim still want to go to Peru and cover our June trip on social?”

Peru.

We honestly had nothing else pre-booked for the entire year except for the winery concert and camping at Bonnechere in June. Saying “yes” to Peru meant we’d have to shuffle our camping dates to the three nights before the concert, not after. And the morning after the concert, we’d have to drive our winery weary bums back home, pronto (insert 530 kilometres here), to catch a flight to Lima the very next day.

Skipping the farewell concert wasn’t an option but adding Peru to the mix meant we had a one-day window to come home, refill the hummingbird feeder and then close up shop for another three weeks while we looked for giant otters, howler monkeys and hoatzins in the Peruvian Amazon. I know, champagne problems.

Our “mobile home” in Turtle Dunes campground at Long Point Provincial Park. We set up at site #416 instead of #418. Whoops.

I called Parks Canada to shift sites. We could still have our coveted riverside site for one night but then we’d have to cross the road with our kit and coolers for the next two nights. Kim and I have done that before (once accidentally) so we didn’t flinch.

This is the influence of a beloved band! We’ve never camped in May (insert bitchy black flies and unpredictably single digit nights here). But why not? We’ve even coerced two friends that we’ve never met into joining us at the winery. They live in Brockville and Frankie and I have shared extensive beer tasting notes, Barbados running routes and Vietnam intel via Facebook for several years thanks to a mutual connection who does know Frankie and I in-person. Heather thought we’d be instant friends because of our past lives as massage therapists and current lives as IPA enthusiasts. She was right (thanks, Heather Myers!).

Last summer’s six-pack from Woodstock’s Brickhouse Brewpub. Kim and I will be swapping regional 6-packs with Frankie and Robin as part of our private and unofficial strange beer-loving club’s first meeting at the winery.

It’s out of the norm for us to pre-plan because, clearly, things like Peru present themselves and we have to drop everything and swing south on a whim. I am grateful that we can see our fave band ignite a room one more time. And really, if it came down to seriously choosing between Madison Violet or Machu Picchu, the girls would win out over the ruins.

Thank you Lisa and Brenley for your talent, sacrifices and lyrics that will remain forever stitched into our days and lives. Revel in all your future pursuits knowing that you left a beautiful mark together.

Check out Madison Violet’s “Last Call and Final Tour” schedule and build your ultimate summer road trip playlist here on Spotify (or have a sneak peek here on their website) from their first album, Worry The Jury (2000) to Eleven (2022). Don’t fret if you’re late to the party, you can still be a fan. I’d recommend that you start here: “Save a Song”, “Haight Ashbury”, “These Ships” (a Matt James remix) and “Small of My Heart.”

Lisa MacIsaac has turned her focus to an empowering east coast concert series called “Small of My Heart” Songwriters Circle, showcasing award-winning women and non-binary artists in music in the Canadian music industry. She is routinely joined by the talent-dipped likes of Catherine MacLellan, Heather Rankin and Abigail MacDonald.

Be sure to follow Brenley on Substack at Brenley’s Airstream Chronicles. I’m glad she’s found another stage with front row seats for an even bigger audience.

What band would you follow to the ends of the earth? Have you seen Cher in concert? And how many costume changes did you count? And don’t forget to refill your hummingbird feeders, they’re back!