It's a homecoming, except this time the house ain't on fire. The last time Stacey Earle toured with her big brother Steve he was on his way to bottoming out on drugs, kicking things over as they got in his way.

"Nobody could stop him,'' Stacey says, but, of course, eventually, John law would.

That was 11 years back, when, to the chagrin of both Earles, Bush was president (hold on ... more deja vu!).

Steve, of course, has been generally walking the line since his 1994 stay in the iron bar hotel. And Stacey, well, she's gone from the role of concerned sister and sometime babysitter, to a gal whose shows reflect the general "what-can-y'all-do?'' charm of someone growing up in a large, noisy family. She's 40, he's five years older. They play the Winspear Centre this very night.

"I imagine we both get asked questions about each other. He gets the Stacey Earle questions; I get the Steve ones,'' she says in her syrupy drawl. "It's come to a point I've built my own path. People are real respectable about it. That's why we're on tour together. If anything I like answering questions about him, just to change things up a little. We should work out an interview deal: you do mine, I do yours.''

I saw Stacey Earle play at the W.I.S.E. Hall in Vancouver last year, a squashed-up crowd of old hippies and potheads constantly laughing as she and her husband, the talented guitarist Mark Stuart, kind of randomly - often by request - went through their songs, telling stories, complaining about border fees. Their rapport was apparent and she joked about having to pretend it appeared that way even when it wasn't. But, never mind, they're very happy moving around the country, in more ways than one. Stacey's not one to go for the "radio hits,'' see.

She plays by herself opening for her older brother on this tour. She is guaranteed to charm the brains out of you people, even without her husband.

"We met at a writers' night. It's been about 10 years now, since I fell in love. This is the first time we've ever toured apart. He's got his own tour going, too. He usually opens for me, but this is a good opportunity to show he is Mark Stuart the artist, rather than Stacey Earle's husband. It's good for both of us.''

Stacey will be playing with Steve during his set, probably on his song Promise You Anything, which opened her album Dancin' With Those That Brung Me. She's seen a fair share of weird crowds on the road with her imposing, hairy brother over the years. She even wrote a song, How I Ran, about how things are good again. "They still listen the same. The mixture of my audience and his finally crossed paths during The Mountain (his bluegrass album). If you look in Steve's audience you've got the Copperhead Road era, yelling 'Copperhead Road,' then you have the Telephone Road folks yelling 'Telephone Road.' Then you have your grunge kids here, your folkies over there. It's really neat they all get in the same room and behave. The rowdiest I've ever had on my own, sometimes one guy, he'll just keep yelling 'Copperhead Road' and I have to tell him, 'That's not even my song, buddy!'

"But I don't even have 30 minutes in Edmonton, so it'll be fine.''

She ties it up. "I was a bit worried about this tour, I'm playing solo. I guess I'm a bit of a goober. But I can always hang around the bar where I can chat once I've done my set. Well it's just another day, I'll have a bourbon and Coke.''