The Texas trio performed with verve at first San Diego concert since 2003

By George Varga, The San Diego Union Tribune

Anyone looking for controversy at Friday night’s polished, expertly performed concert by the Dixie Chicks at Sleep Train Amphitheatre in Chula Vista probably would have left disappointed. Unless, perhaps, they happened to be visiting from a certain city in Northern California.

"San Diego, you guys have been awesome! I said that last night in Sacramento, but I was lying — tonight, I’m telling the truth!" lead singer Natalie Maines told the cheering Sleep Train audience, shortly before the conclusion of the two-hour concert.

It was a memorable moment of levity at a concert that qualified as a welcome-back victory lap by the Texas-bred trio, now embarked on its first national tour in a decade.

The group’s most recent area performance was 13 years ago at SDSU’s Cox (now Viejas) Arena. Friday’s show came 17 years after the Dixie Chicks’ 1999 breakthrough performance here during the Lilith Fair festival tour stop at what is now Sleep Train Amphitheatre.

Like no other female act, the Dixie Chicks — Maines, violinist/singer Martie Maguire and banjo player, dobro player and singer Emily Strayer — ruled country music in the late 1990s and early 2000s. They became national pariahs in 2003, after expressing sentiments against the U.S.-led war in Iraq that few might disagree with today. While their SDSU show that same year was rife with political commentary, on Friday the trio largely let their music speak for them —along with some choice visual images and a few carefully selected songs that were played before they took the stage.

No,　not　the recordings of MC Hammer’s "You Can’t Touch This" and Michael Jackson’s "Billie Jean," both of which were heard over the massive sound system. Rather, it was the two songs that followed.

The first was 1999’s "Profit in Peace" by the English band Ocean Colour Scene (with its sobering refrain:　Hey, we don’t wanna fight no more / But there's no profit in peace / So we gotta fight some more).The second was "Ohio," the classic 1970 Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young protest anthem, which was inspired by the fatal National Guard shootings of four Kent State University students at a campus anti-war demonstration.

Then, the lights in the sprawling amphitheater dimmed and Prince’s "Let’s Go Crazy" boomed out, offering a celebratory invitation that inspired many in the enthusiastic audience to rise to their feet and dance in the nearly 20,000-capacity venue, which seemed about two-thirds full.

The juxtaposition of Prince’s vital exultation with the two still-timely protest songs was no accident. It enabled the Dixie Chicks, before they even sang or played a note, to signal that their concert would provide an evening of sleek, well-calibrated entertainment, along with some moments of reflection.

Their subsequent performance mixed such rousing, uptempo songs as "Lubock or Leave It" and "Sin Wagon" with such tender ballads as "Easy Silence" and "Top of the World," one of three numbers Friday written by Texas troubadour Patty Griffin. Equally pleasing was a charged bluegrass segment that included "White Trash Wedding" and a version of "Lil’ Jack Slade" that deftly mixed in snippets of White Stripes’ "Seven Nation Army" and Beyoncé’s "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)."

The only new song performed, coincidentally, was Beyoncé’s "Daddy Issues," which reached its full country-music potential in the gifted hands and voices of Maines, Maguire and Strayer. Here, and throughout the concert, their full-bodied harmonies and crisp playing were an unqualified delight. The spare staging seemed specifically designed to place the emphasis where it belonged, on the music.

Fleetwood Mac’s "Landslide," long a highlight of the trio’s live shows, was especially moving Friday. Their version of Prince’s "Nothing Compares 2 U," while equally earnest, seemed less well-suited to Maines’ otherwise commanding voice. Her singing was electronically sweetened several times during the concert, which made her periodic missed notes sound all the more real and endearing.

The Dixie Chicks’ five-man band, which includes Oceanside guitarist Justin Weaver, performed with flair and precision, even when the overly amplified sound mix became muddled. Maines joked that drummer Jimmy Paxson needed three hours before each show — "Thirty minutes more than us!" — to prepare his hair. Whether accurate or not, his overly-coiffed mane suggested a humorously exaggerated version of drummer Alex Van Halen in the 1984 video for Van Halen’s "Hot for Teacher."

The momentum lagged only once. After a superb rendition of "Goodbye Earl," which is likely the most musically upbeat song ever written about the murder of an abusive husband, all eight musicians left the stage for a set change. In the interim, a much too-long video was shown of of the Dixie Chicks drag-racing, set to a bluegrass instrumental version of the Motörhead speed-metal anthem "Ace of Spades."

This may have been an amusing idea, at least on paper. But it sapped the flow of a concert that had just reached a visceral peak with "Goodbye Earl," which featured a video that mixed vintage black-and-white movie clips with still photos of Chris Brown, Charlie Sheen, Robert Durst and presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. The fact that a devil’s horns, mustache and goatee had been added to Trump’s visage drew a big cheer from the predominantly female audience.

Prior to the show’s concluding encore — a suitably uplifting version of Ben Harper’s "Better Way" — Maines espoused the power of positive energy in an increasingly troubled world. That she did so immediately after the Dixie Chicks had performed a potent version of their Grammy-winning 2006 song of anger and defiance, "Not Ready to Make Nice," helped end the concert with a memorable, one-two musical punch.

The audience happily sang along to many of the selections Friday. There appeared to be a good mix of longtime fans and younger devotees, who may have grown up with the Dixie Chicks’ music but were too young to catch the band’s previous tour a decade ago. Now, with this tour under their collective belts, how about an album of new music?