On stage at Fredericton's Playhouse on Saturday, the members of Hot Toddy had more to share than just music. Bass player Tom Easley had brought along a band tour journal that had been kept in the van from 2001-2003, full of deep thoughts, scribbles, lists, and laughs. He shared a few memories with the audience.

"Well, the van has broken down," he quotes from the road in 2002. "I think it had a car-diac arrest." Sometimes humour was the only thing that got them through.

Flipping through the journal backstage before the show, Easley and Thom Swift discovered a somewhat-accurate list of a tour that took them across Canada and over to Europe. It included nine hotels, nine provinces, seven time zones, three countries, ten airports, 3,247 Heineken, two oil changes, three CIBC Aerogold cards, three cartons of smokes, three mountain ranges, two oceans, nine festivals, and fifty to sixty thousand kilometers of travel.

Not bad for a band from Fredericton in those days. Before the success of home town heroes such as David Myles and Matt Andersen, the city had been late to the party in the East Coast music scene. But when guitar players Swift and Joel Leblanc teamed up in 1997, and later added Easley, they joined the folk trio Modabo as major players in the area. Hot Toddy released a string of albums, including Shoe Factory, Any Day and Trio, which culminated in them being named the 2007 Canadian Maple Blues Award winners for Acoustic Act of the Year.

At the end of that decade, both Easley and Swift had moved to Halifax for personal reasons and solo careers. The gigs did continue for awhile, but it became harder and harder to maintain the career. The last time the band played was four years ago in Fredericton, when they were invited to perform the entirety of Shoe Factory at a special show at the Shivering Songs festival.

Not that they didn't keep in touch or remain fast friends. So when the request came through this year to reunite for the Harvest 25th Anniversary edition, they jumped at it. "Oh my God, we were thrilled to be asked," confirms Easley.

"This is Brent's baby," says Swift. He's referring to Harvest music programmer Brent Staeben, who was charged this year with putting together a special lineup for the anniversary. "He wanted us to do it, he was over the top getting us together."

It's only fitting. Hot Toddy is deeply associated with the festival and the city, among music fans. The crowd that greeted the trio Saturday afternoon welcomed them with long and loving applause, the group members beaming on stage at the reception.

They had taken the reunion very seriously. "We first had a really good three-day rehearsal in June," says Easley. "Because we hadn't hung out in so long, we decided to try to play every song we ever wrote together. We got to about forty, it was so great. We'd play for an hour, and laugh for an hour."

The laughs are just as important to the band as the music, as was obvious from their reaction to the journal entries read on stage. The camaraderie was as infectious as the music, their audience feeling as much friends as fans. But as for chops, there's never been any doubt Hot Toddy could stand with any band in the country.

There's still a huge respect for what they did then, and what they can do now. "The songs came back pretty good," says Swift. "Some of that stuff was ferocious, physically ferocious. But I hear a maturity in our playing now, thanks to all the solo work we've been doing."

With Leblanc in a different city, the other two don't get to hear much of him at all, and were particularly impressed. "Joel's guitar tone is unbelievable," says Easley, shaking his head admiringly.

The only worry the group had was the set-list, which was too packed for the time slot when they went on stage, too many songs they really wanted to play, too many stories to tell and too much appreciation they wanted to share. In the end, they had to leave the audience wanting more. There were a few tears shed in the crowd, and lots and lots of warmth. The door will always be open for Hot Toddy in Fredericton.