Fans agree Chicks rule in concert
By Tom Alesia, Wisconsin State Journal
"Chicks rule!" declared a homemade sign that a concertgoer held overhead before Friday night's sold-out Dixie
Chicks show at the Bradley Center.
After the electrifying hoedown, it was impossible to disagree.
Headlining its first tour, the Dixie Chicks hatched one of the freshest country-music concerts, ever for a
group packing pro basketball arenas.
The trio remains devoted to country's roots -- Friday's show; featured a solo jam on dobro, for goodness sake
-- while luring young pop fans who probably couldn't name more than one or two George Strait tunes.
That's impressive given the fact that Nashville hitmakers (Shania Twain, Faith Hill, Lonestar and all) are
as likely to be heard on pop outlets as country stations.
Although the Dixie Chicks' two albums indicated as much, it was nice to see the group is the real deal in
concert. Behind their considerable sex appeal and, as a result, easy marketability, they do indeed rule.
Singer Natalie Maines, 25, is a spunky performer with a delightful twangy voice. Martie Seidel, 30, plays
fiddle and contributes as much to the band's sound as Eddie Van Halen lends to Van Halen.
Emily Robison, 27 and Seidel’s sister, rounds out the trio, playing banjo and lap steel.
It's also a good sign that many of Friday's best moments, such as "You Were Mine" and "Sin Wagon," were songs
written by the Chicks.
But despite the Chicks' success' as a rare all-female band, they don't use their forum for feminist power.
Virtually every tune deals with love won and/or lost.
And their recent hit, "Cowboy, Take Me Away," has none of the lyrical bite of Paula Cole's "Where Have All
the Cowboys Gone?' Even the bubbly "Goodbye Earl,'-" about a woman who kills her abusive husband by poisoning his black-eyed
peas, is just plain fun.
What hampered Friday's show wasn't the music. At one point, the; Chicks spent a few agonizing minutes commenting
on their childhood pictures that flashed on the video screens. Also, the tour's dot-com sponsor used two obnoxious jugheads
to hype the crowd before the show.
But the Chicks are savvy. Instead of hiring a Nashville hunk du jour as the opening act, they picked the talented
but faded country square Ricky Skaggs, who played hardcore bluegrass. In turn, Skaggs joined the Chicks for the night's best
instrumental rocker.
The Chicks, backed by an anonymous six-man band, also chose great covered tunes by Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow
and the original' alt-country queen Maria McKee.
By the near-two-hour show's finale, "Wide Open Spaces," the Chicks had 18,000 fans singing along, putting
an exclamation point on an already terrific concert.
