Dixie Chicks take a swipe at Trump amid musical brilliance

by Simon Holt, Sydney Morning Herald

If country music was a cliché, all that was missing from Saturday night's Dixie Chicks concert was a table of grandma's best cooking and redneck propaganda.

Judging from the number of RM Williams belts and boots, blue jeans and mullet haircuts, anyone would have been forgiven for thinking the "chicks" had missed their mark with such a liberal view of the world.

The humour of a joke cardboard cutout of foul-mouthed Ronnie Mund, and American radio host Howard Stern's limousine driver and bodyguard, might not have translated quite as well to a Brisbane audience as it might have in the United States.

But people got it – enough to know it wouldn't be a Dixie Chicks concert without an opportunity for lead singer Natalie Maines to take a swipe at the conservative side of American politics.

"He (flat Ronnie, standing on stage during the second half of the show) makes us feel good – keeps an eye on things, kind of like our own Donald Trump," she told a sell-out Boondall crowd on Saturday night.

"Make Brisbane great again. Personally, I never thought it lost its greatness, but apparently it has to be great again."

The politics mattered little. Maines and sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Robison had the audience in the palm of their hand from the first song, The Long Way Around.

Carrying white instruments – Maguire her trademark violin, Maines a guitar, and Robison a banjo – they leapt from genre to genre, country to mainstream pop, to bluegrass and a version of Daddy Lessons, a collaboration the band did with Beyonce.

Maines was extraordinary. A highlight was her mesmerising rendition of Sinead O'Connor's Nothing Compares To You, sung as a tribute to the man who wrote it, Prince.

For two hours, the "chicks" didn't miss a beat. The audience clapped in unison, danced uncontrollably, and hollered for more when it was almost over.

Wandering through about 20 years of hits that won them 13 Grammies, and sold them 27 million albums, it was a show of contrasts. Graphics on the big screen behind the performers were modern, but so much of it was good old-fashioned fun – to songs like Landslide, Travelling Soldier and Wide Open Spaces a singalong, and to Good Bye Earl a ho-down.

Such was the polished brilliance that I was questioning my own musicality. Since childhood, I'd been happily married – to rock 'n' roll with a sprinkling of pop on the side. But here I was, being unfaithful, enjoying country – maybe as much, if not more than anything else I'd seen.

Maines was the star. At the top of the show, she promised they would "attempt to entertain". And try she did. The Dixie Chicks are a band comfortable in their own skin, highly professional, polished and oozing class.

Yet, after many years of performing hundreds of shows, Maines in particular gave the impression she was enjoying it as much as she had her first. The song list ebbed and flowed, some songs light and upbeat, others embedded with deep emotion.

Even when the crowd was in raptures, Maines raised the bar: "I think we can do better," she said. The crowd responded. The band responded, as they launched into another bracket of hits.

Landslide was always going to be the song people were waiting for, and it too came with an interesting dialogue.

Paying homage to the song's composer Stevie Nicks, Maines said it was released 15 years ago. At that time, she was the only one to have a child. The band now has nine in total.

"And I find that a little irritating," she said.

I haven't seen them all, but this was one of the better shows at Boondall for quite some time. It was faultless, seamless, and delivered with youthful exuberance, refreshing and uninhibited diversity of genres, and a class rarely seen on the world music stage.

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