Séan McCann and Jeremy Fisher to reunite for Brockville show celebrating friendship, storytelling and the power of music

When Canadian singer-songwriters Jeremy Fisher and Séan McCann first met years ago in the lounge of a tour bus parked behind an arena in Sudbury, they did what musicians often do; they picked up guitars and started writing songs.

What neither of them anticipated was that a chance meeting on the road would evolve into a years-long friendship that would eventually bring them back together for a special co-headline tour more than 15 years later.

McCann, best known as a founding member of the iconic Canadian folk-rock band Great Big Sea, and Fisher, who previously opened from Great Big Sea on tour, have shared stages for years. Now, years after their last major co-headline tour together in 2011, the two longtime friends are reuniting for United in Song, a concert that will stop at Arts Hub Brockville this fall.

The show promises an evening of music, storytelling, and audience participation, all built around the friendship that has endured long after the tour buses stopped rolling.

“We bonded over music stuff we were listening to and kind of turned each other on to different things,” Fisher recalled in an interview with Brockvilleist. “That was really how the friendship started.”

After touring together across Canada in a minivan in 2011 while McCann was still a member of Great Big Sea, the pair found themselves navigating similar life changes and developing a connection that extended beyond music. “We were just going through a lot of changes our lives, and we bonded over music and the commonalities in our lives on the road,” Fisher shared. “Then I flew out and did a one off in Newfoundland and stayed with him and met his wife and family, and then we just became friends outside of music.”

It just so happened that the two musicians then moved to the Ottawa area around the same time. “So now it’s birthdays and hikes in the woods and walking the dogs.” Fisher laughed, saying their friendship has evolved from a music-industry friendship into “a real-life friendship.”

“I have a lot of friends who are musicians, and it’s not uncommon to forge a fast friendship out on the road,” he told Brockvilleist. “But what is extremely uncommon is to form a real friendship.”

It was from that organic friendship that the idea for United in Song was born, not in a music boardroom or at a management meeting, but during a nature hike in the woods.

Fisher said the pair had been talking about touring together for years, particularly after live performances started up again following the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.

“We’ve been talking about it for probably five years,” he recalled. “Then we were out on a hike and realized we both had some time in the fall…Somehow we just had this little window of time where we could do this together.”

According to Arts Hub Brockville, audiences can expect acoustic guitars, Irish hand drums, tin whistles, singalongs and plenty of storytelling as the pair trade songs and accompany one another throughout the performance.

Unlike many co-headline tours where artists perform separate setlists, United in Song will see McCann and Fisher share the stage together for the entire show. For Fisher, this is meant to recreate the feeling of the free flowing conversations and musical exchanges he and McCann have when they’re simply spending time together.

“What I’m hoping is that the intimate feeling fosters an environment where it’s just as fun as it is when Séan and I hang out,” he shared. “I want us to be loose and joking with each other, and for it to feel like a big living room.”

The most special performances, Fisher added, are the ones where the audience can become part of the experience.

“Those are my favourite kinds of shows, when you can really hear the room and know you’re in that room with that specific audience,” Fisher told Brockvilleist. “Things are going to happen there that didn’t happen the night before and won’t happen the night after.”

According to the Arts Hub, one of the themes woven throughout United in Song is the importance of human connection in an increasingly digital world. The tour is described as “a deliberate act of joyful resistance” against a culture dominated by screens, algorithms and artificial intelligence.

For Fisher, that message isn’t about rejecting technology altogether. Rather, it’s about creating space for creating and enjoying something that technology can’t replicate.

“These things follow us everywhere,” he said, referring to phones and digital media. “They’re indispensable tools and I think we all struggle with not getting sucked into the doom or just the habitual nature of it.”

As a touring musician, Fisher says he often feels live performers are competing for people’s attention against an endless stream of addictive online content.

“I don’t know a single person who has said, ‘I spent three hours scrolling TikTok last night and it was amazing,'” he quipped. “But I do know a lot of people who say, ‘I went to this show and I couldn’t believe the story this person told,’ or ‘I connected with this song because it reminded me of my mother’.”

For Fisher, the allure of these devices is that they’re interactive but they can end up becoming quite passive. “Hopefully we’re all going to forget our phones and just create a moment in time that happens and passes by. Maybe it’s not documented, maybe it’s just something we feel in the moment,” he told Brockvilleist.

While Fisher and McCann have no plans to ask audience members to put away their phones, they suspect the energy of the show may naturally encourage people to focus on the experience unfolding in front of them.

“It’s going to be such a fun and engaging evening,” Fisher said. “I think it’s going to be the natural way of things for people to forget to even have a phone.”

United in Song featuring Séan McCann and Jeremy Fisher will take place on Saturday, Oct. 17 at 7 p.m. at Arts Hub Brockville, located at 32 Park St. Tickets are available now through Showpass.