Dixie Chicks were at their best as themselves during New Orleans concert

By Keith Spera, The New Orleans Advocate

The Dixie Chicks covered songs by Prince, Beyoncé, Patty Griffin, Fleetwood Mac, Bob Dylan and Ben Harper on Saturday at New Orleans' Smoothie King Center. But they soared highest as themselves.

During two hours onstage, the Chicks came across as smart, strong and very much of the moment, despite a decade's hiatus.

Vocalist/guitarist Natalie Maines, fiddle player Martie Maguire and her sister, banjoist/guitarist Emily Strayer, are at their core a very good band. The siblings are nimble, versatile instrumentalists, and Maines has a potent voice with a natural, appealing twang.

All those skills — as well as their equally adept, five-piece backing band — were on display for a large, but not capacity, crowd at the Smoothie King Center that skewed heavily female.

The Chicks are back on the road in America for the first time in 10 years with their DCX MMXVI Tour. They haven’t released a new album since 2006. But the ecstatic reception that greeted the opening notes of such Chicks classics as "Goodbye Earl," "Cowboy Take Me Away" and "Wide Open Spaces" was testament to the endearing, and enduring, nature of their best songs.

A recording of Prince’s "Let’s Go Crazy," cranked to full arena rock volume, prefaced the Chicks’ arrival in silhouette on a stage dominated by an enormous video wall. That wall displayed geometric patterns, sumptuous nature footage, spoofs of both Republican and Democratic presidential wannabes in "Ready to Run," and the Prince glyph during a striking "Nothing Compares 2 U" that showcased Maines' power and control.

From the opening "The Long Way Around," Maguire’s fiddle and Strayer’s banjo spoke to the bluegrass roots of the band they first founded in Texas. Maines, who joined later, was the missing ingredient.

With her voice and equally bold personality out front, the Chicks released back-to-back albums in the late 1990s that sold over 10 million copies; they have sold more albums than any other female band, of any genre.

Saturday's show demonstrated why. Their robust harmonies dressed up "Long Time Gone" and many other songs. The lovely Patty Griffin ballad "Top of the World" was set down by Maguire’s fiddle and the drummer’s mallet strikes.

From there, they dashed into "Goodbye Earl," a pure-country tale of women taking revenge on an abusive man. A parade of vintage mug shots also included the more contemporary O.J. Simpson, Chris Brown and Robert Durst.

Following a video interlude, the trio returned for an acoustic segment arrayed across the front of the stage. This tour features the Chicks’ first-ever costume change, Maines noted: "Before we were in black and white. Now we’re in white and black."

The trio rendered a poignant "Travelin’ Soldier" without their backing band. Given how much they brought to bear in that song's stripped-down arrangement — the richness of their harmonies, the way Maguire’s fiddle curled around the second verse, Strayer’s fluid dobro solo — it seemed likely they could carry a full show on their own.

The band rejoined them for "Don’t Let Me Die in Florida," one of three Griffin compositions on the set list. Maines said they’ve played "Don't Let Me Die" in Florida, and "I think you’ll realize how courageous that was of us … or stupid."

The sisters let their singer do all the talking, so it was Maines who explained that Beyoncé’s "Lemonade" is their inspirational soundtrack before shows. They demonstrated that, in the right hands, banjo, fiddle and melodica are wholly appropriate instruments for the "Lemonade" track "Daddy Lessons."

"Here’s a song that neither Patty Griffin nor Beyoncé wrote," Maines joked in introducing their own "White Trash Wedding." Her concluding "yee-haw" was right at home amidst mandolin and fiddle.

After detours for Bob Dylan’s "Mississippi" and Fleetwood Mac’s "Landslide" — opening act Elle King returned to sing lead on it, though Maines’ voice is better suited for it — they uncorked three of their own hits. "Cowboy Take Me Away" and "Wide Open Spaces" became mass singalongs; both clearly made a deep impression on many women in the audience. The final "Sin Wagon" was a hoot.

"Not Ready to Make Nice," the Dixie Chicks’ rebuttal to those who found them to be too outspoken, opened the encores. Not wanting to leave the audience in that frame of mind, Maines said they hoped to perpetuate positive vibes with Ben Harper’s "Better Way."

It was a nice, but unnecessary, gesture. The Dixie Chicks’ own songs, played so well and with such spirit, provided all the positivity that was needed.

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