'Chicks' mellow with bit of sass

By Donna Isbell Walker, Greenville News

The Dixie Chicks have always brought a healthy dose of attitude, a quirky sense of style and a blast of pure country to the stage.

This time around, playing to a sold-out crowd at the Bi-Lo Center Sunday night, the attitude was ever-so-slightly mellowed and the musical horizons broadened just a bit.

The three proficient musicians were still dancing with the ones that brought them -- country and bluegrass -- while adding a rock 'n' roll edge. The show brought few musical surprises, but the three women took two albums' worth of familiar songs and found ways to make them sound fresh.

Opening with the Celtic-laced "Ready to Run," lead singer Natalie Maines, fiddler Martie Seidel and banjo/guitar player Emily Robison performed with the confidence of seasoned headliners.

Maines bopped up and down and whirled like a windmill in the center of the stage, while Robison wielded her slide guitar like a rock god on several songs. Seidel was a bit more subdued but no less skilled.

The trio harmonized nicely on "Don't Waste Your Heart" and rocked out on a rendition of Bonnie Raitt's "Give It Up or Let Me Go."

The Chicks took a break on a couch in the middle of the stage for a torchy version of "Let Him Fly" and a quiet but powerful "Heartbreak Town."

Late in the show, sisters Seidel and Robison brought out opening act Ricky Skaggs for a bluegrass jam that showed off all three performers' musical chops and featured a snippet of the song that gave the band its name, Little Feat's "Dixie Chicken."

But the two biggest crowd pleasers were the naughty "Sin Wagon," which Maines sang with a lascivious twinkle, and the encore, "Goodbye Earl," which they performed from perches in the audience.

And that saucy demeanor showed up eventually.

The pregnant Maines, sporting a "Baby on Board" sign on her electric-blue guitar, stopped in the middle of the intra to "Let 'Er Rip" to chide a male fan standing at the foot of the stage.

"Are you trying to look up my skirt?" she asked. "He was trying to look up my skirt. There's nothin' up there for you."

While many of the male fans obviously appreciated the aesthetic appeal of the musicians, female fans found it easy to relate to the Chicks' music and outlook.

"It's very liberating," said Robin Bullock of Walterboro.