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Country Chic
By Greg Kot, Chicago Tribune
Move over Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys. Shut up, Eminem and Kid Rock. While you bubblegum kids and strychnine-tongued
rappers are dominating media coverage of pop music, the Dixie Chicks -- three pseudo-country singers who don't wear cowgirl
hats -- are striking a lucrative chord with just about everybody else.
The numbers don't lie: two albums, both still in the top 100 of the Billboard pop chart, with total sales of 15 million.
In 1998-99, the Texas trio played 250 concerts to more than 2 million fans. Now on their first national headlining tour, they
are selling out arena shows in unlikely country-music bastions such as Anaheim, Calif., Salt Lake City and Fargo, N.D. Last
Thursday, they played to a United Center audience that had gobbled up all the available tickets weeks before the show.
This was country music as defined by a shopping-mall culture, in all its middle-American eclecticism. The Chicks wear go-go
boots, leather pants and fringed bell-bottoms. In the audience, there were Chicks wannabes in feather boas, grizzled would-be
rustlers in cowboy boots, and a fair number of younger fans who wouldn't have looked out of place at a Matchbox Twenty or
Alanis Morissette concert. Ricky Skaggs and his eight-piece string band opened with a set of ferocious bluegrass -- Bill Monroe's
music played at thrash-metal volume and velocity and got a standing ovation. Videos by TLC and No Doubt aired before the concert,
and a Lenny Kravitz tune ushered the Chicks on stage.
The Chicks click because they've tapped into the new Nashville eth-0$: The country for which country music was named doesn't
exisit anymore. It has moved to the suburbs, and today's "country" fans are just as likely to have been raised oh the Eagles
and James Taylor as Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. Garth Brooks and Shania Twain -- themselves children of the country-rock
'70s -- understood those realities and manipulated them, paving the way for the Chicks. They wore jeans and cowboy hats, and
employed pedal -steel guitars and fiddles as slgnifiers of a simpler, more rustic time, while offering up pop songs designed
to rock arenas and ring cish registers the way Kiss or Styx once did.
The Dixie Chicks tone down some of the cartoon imagery; their act is earthier and more human than Twain's hillbilly Bo
Derek routine and Brooks' smarmy hick shtick. And their allegiance to country's roots appears more genuine; fiddle player
Martie Seidel and banjoist Emily Robison are steeped in blue-grass tradition and their riffs and solos are integral to the
songs rath-. er than just pasted on for effect. Singer Natalie Maines is the trio's wild card; she has a twang in her voice
that suggests she has at least heard of Loretta Lynn, but her. spunky attitude speaks to a generation that watches Rosie O'Donnell
and still has "Grease" posters in their closets.
There was rock 'n' roll flash on the set, which was designed by Luc Lafortune of Cirque de Soleil fame and which featured
three video screens. There was a helping of Brooks-like country corn, with a slide show that included baby pictures of the
trio. And there were songs that touched on Celtic folk in "Ready to Run," Celine Dion-like balladry in "Without You," and
rock pyrotechnics in "I Can Love You Better," with drummer Jim Bogios bashing like Keith Moon.
Of all the American art forms, none delved as deeply into the culture of the everyday as country music once did. Its hit
songs were a barometer of domesticity; even its cheatin and drinkin' cliches spoke t5 harder truths about the way common-
people live. The Chicks, like Brooks and Twain, settle for the catchy hook and the breezy chorus -- "I'm arrivin' on a sin
wagon" and "Hello, Mr. Heartache, I've been expecting you" -- but don't dare look any deeper.
Even the trio's dire tale of spousal abuse, "Goodbye Earl," was presented as a feel-good novelty song, complete with a
video showing actor Dennis Franz in a garish Elvis toupee. There was rarely a sense of the devastating passion that makes
still-vital performers like George Jones, Nelson and Haggard no longer welcome on commercial country radio. An exception was
Seidel and Robi-son's song about their parents' divorce, "You Were Mine," which looked pathos in the eye and didn't try to
dress it up for a care-free night on the town.
A Bonnie Raitt blues, "Give It Up or Let Me Go," with Robison working the slide on her dobro, and a bluegrass instrumental
showed the Chicks' instrumental dexterity to fine effect. On the latter, the group was joined by Skaggs, who instantly put
the tune into fifth gear with his blistering mandolin playing. The virtuoso's presence raised the stakes, and the willowy
Robison and Seidel hung with him. It showed the Chicks have more layers to their sound, more depth to their playing than their
likable but lightweight albums reveal. If Brooks and Twain established the new Nashville formula, the Chicks are the one group.with
the potential and the commercial clout to break out, of it.
The Dixie Chicks at the United Center
By Bobby Reed
Thursday night's concert at the United Center provided evidence
that the Dixie Chicks should perhaps change their name. The band's title is a misnomer, connoting young birds unable to take
flight. The trio flew high at this sold-out show, delighting the mostly female crowd with a parade of hit singles.
A
more accurate name for the platinum-blond, platinum-selling act would be the Nashville Warblers. As any ornithologist knows,
the Nashville Warbler sings lovely melodies, has a bright yellow color and is capable of long migrations.
The trio--lead
singer Natalie Maines, banjo/guitar player Emily Robison and fiddle player Martie Seidel--was founded in the Dallas area more
than a decade ago. In the last 2 1/2 years, though, the group has conquered Nashville and the rest of the United States. The
band's exemplary albums "Wide Open Spaces" and "Fly," both on the Monument label, have sold a
combined total of 16 million
copies.
This concert, however, illustrated the difference between recorded product and live presentation. The band
delivered an energetic show, but a muddy sound system and less-than-impressive singing from Maines marred the festivities.
Drummer
Jim Bogios' playing was reduced to a rumbling thud by the poor audio mix, and Maines strayed into the shrill end of the aural
spectrum a bit too often, particularly during the ballad "Without You." Such sharp notes are conveniently rounded off and
glossed over in the studio.
In fairness it should be noted how difficult it is to achieve a great sound mix in the
United Center.
When the denim-colored curtain dropped and the band launched into "Ready to Run," the crowd's cheer
reached a decibel level that may not have been achieved in the arena since Michael Jordan played there.
Seidel flexed
her fiddle muscles and showed why she is the MVP of this outfit. Her playing was flawless all night, especially on "I Can
Love You Better" and a cover of Little Feat's "Dixie Chicken," the source of the band's name.
The Dixie Chicks, as
any fan will tell you, are quite fashion-conscious, and Seidel took home the sartorial prize. She sported black leather pants,
a sleeveless white T-shirt and a belt buckle about the size of a license plate. In her gold stiletto go-go boots and retro
hairstyle, Maines looked like a cross between a '70s housewife and No Doubt lead singer Gwen Stefani.
Robison wore a red
tube top and brown, fringed, flared, hip-huggers.
Midway through the show, the group gave a self-deprecating slide
presentation that showed the evolution of their fashion sense. This, along with the fake snow that fell during "Cold Day in
July," was more entertaining than the music.
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