OTTAWA - Hump day on Great Big Sea's nationwide press tour, and Sean McCann has lost his pants.

"Many people came onto the bus in stages last night," offers multi-instrumentalist Bob Hallett during a promotional pitstop in Ottawa in late June.

"Did anyone leave with black pants on?

"Well, no one left, so ... no."

Trouser misadventures aside, life on the road has been sweet for Newfoundland's best-known export since Screech.

Fifteen-year veterans of the Canadian music scene with platinum albums and international tours under their belts, the celt-rockers return to Ottawa tonight where they will no doubt be greeted by a great big sea of Bluesfest fans.

The band's last pass through the capital two weeks ago was a decidedly different, though no less familiar venue.

The Heart & Crown pub hosted a "secret show" for a handful of the band's most devoted fans. And while the band members wear their hometown pride on their sleeves, they all agree Ottawa has been like a second home.

"And if Ottawa is our second home," says gravel-throated frontman Alan Doyle in his distinctive Newfoundland lilt, "then the Heart & Crown has been our living room."

"Ottawa was the first place that embraced us and it was the last place we expected to," adds McCann. "We've enjoyed a success beyond our merit here."

The pub shows brought the boys of Great Big Sea back to their St. John's roots, where they spent countless nights cutting their teeth in George St. pubs of variable repute.

"It's a really comfortable fit, we started in pubs," says McCann.

Besides, says Hallett, when the band is on road, "normally we'd just go to the pub anyway."

But whether sweating it out in a dank beer-soaked tavern or rocking out on vast and equally beer-soaked festival stages, the boys of Great Big Sea are equally at ease.

Great Big Sea's 10th album, Fortune's Favour, is a journey across the band's now-familiar landscape -- joyous, seize the day gusto of the radio-friendly Walk on the Moon and Here and Now, tender ballads cut straight from the harsh homeland terrain of Banks of Newfoundland and Rocks of Merasheen, and the country-infused singalongs Long Lost Love and Heart of Stone.

After the promotional pub tour -- "Someone forgot to factor in the hangover factor ... we're over-pubbing it," quips a bleary-eyed McCann -- the band returned to the big stage last night for Quebec City's 400th anniversary celebration.

Tomorrow, the band headlines what Doyle calls "the premier concert venue in the country," Toronto's Molson Amphitheatre, before embarking on a 40-date tour that will take them through 25 states and all manner of stages, from clubs to arenas to festival grounds.

Just no pubs this time -- at least not until after the show.