One had a voice as pure as gold. The other, well, he sure could play the fiddle.

Tara MacLean and Ashley MacIsaac combined Tuesday night for a duo of performances that could quite possibly be the best Ames will see all year.

MacLean took elements from Alanis, Jewel and Tori and combined them with aesthetic beauty for a nearly perfect opening performance. Covering emotional issues such as child abuse and self-affirmation, MacLean opened her heart in beautiful fashion.

Sneaking in smiles that could have easily been replaced by tears, the singer balanced her lyrical courage with a voice as strong as the feeling in the air.

Midway through her set, MacIsaac’s drummer Adam Dowling took stage with MacLean for a truly memorable version of “Let Her Feel The Rain”. The set then took on a new direction when MacLean put down her guitar and found a seat in front of the keyboard.

The artist continued into a two-song Amos-like voyage before breaking the serious mood with a song she introduced by saying, “You can’t just cry about it all of the time.” In what seemed like impromptu lyrics, MacLean sang about seeing an ex-lover with someone else.

MacLean used a smile and occasional pauses to keep the crowd in laughter and possibly avoid the frustration behind the sad story of the song. After the tune, MacLean joked, “That was the Alanis in me.”

But it was the finale that proved grand for MacLean, whose only fault up until then was a slight lack of conversation with the crowd. Without any musical background, the singer climbed into an a capella version of the beautiful “Silence”.

The song left the entire room in awe and just as people began to realize what they had heard, MacLean was gone.

But where MacLean left off, MacIsaac picked up, and in a huge way. As the lights went down and the band jogged on stage, the alterna-fiddler began pounding his foot to the floor.

As the beat picked up, MacIsaac held his bow up and went to town. The band, known as the Kitchen Devils, followed MacIsaac’s lead and brought the tempo up to an even faster pace.

Part way through the song, MacIsaac found home next to bagpipe player Scott Long for a celtic/hard rock jam session that sounded like something off the Braveheart soundtrack, but with a twist of grunge.

If the opening music weren’t overwhelming enough, Devil guitarist Stuart Cameron took center stage for a fancy step-dance routine that went perfectly with the band’s Scottish roots.

Although none of the members wore a kilt, MacIsaac’s gear captured a unique style of its own, mixing camouflage pants with unabomber-like tinted glasses and a stocking cap to match.

After the larger-than-life opening tune, MacIsaac grabbed the mic and asked, “Did anyone have any preconceived misconceptions?”

With a few laughs behind him and the stage presence of Freddy Mercury and all of Kiss put together, the fiddler jammed through three or four of the more danceable tunes off his latest record, Hi, How Are You Today?.

MacIsaac then re-introduced MacLean, who came out to sing the vocals on his current single “Sleepy Maggie”. Although his catchy fiddle work matched the radio version perfectly, it also managed to drown out the beautiful voice of MacLean.

The band continued with “Rusty D-con-STRUCK-tion”, a song MacIsaac described as an ode to M-Shop director Rusty Poehner who “made it all possible.”

Bassist Ed Woodsworth stepped up for the second part of the show, donating his fair share of rock to the borderline square dance set.

The ultimate moment of the night came when Woodsworth pumped the all-too-familiar bassline of The Bee Gee’s “Stayin Alive” into the speakers. MacIsaac had no problem handling the lyrics, only he used his fiddle rather than his voice.

The band danced through the remainder of its set with the same kind of “we’re having a blast” attitude, while the crowd entered deeper and deeper into the music.

A one-song encore left a little more to be desired out of the ending, but the earlier parts of the show easily made up for it.

MacIsaac may be forever remembered in America for showing his package on national TV, but it was the total package that he and the Kitchen Devils delivered Tuesday that will be forever remembered in this city.