Plenty of pop - yet anchored in country roots

By Dan DeLuca, The Philadelphia Inquirer

The sold-out Dixie Chicks performance Saturday at the Spectrum flashed all the bells and whistles of the Big Rock Show.

Opening-act Willie Nelson was followed by backward-baseball-capped dudes named Lance and Nathan (the latter an alum of MTVs The Real World), who ran around getting the intergenerational crowd stoked while techno and house music blared.

A 15-foot inflatable insect inspired by the title of the Texas trio's 10 million-selling 1999 album, Fly hovered overhead, bestowing Dixie Chicks guitar picks on the fortunate. During "Cold Day in July," soap-bubble "snow" fell from the rafters.

And for the Thelma and Louise-style revenge fantasy "Goodbye Earl" which raises the question: "How come the Chicks can get away with killing people in song and Allen Iverson can't?" singer Natalie Maines appeared at the back of the arena floor, while instrumentalist sisters Emily Robison and Martie Seidel turned up on either side of the second level.

In the post-Garth era, such showbiz shenanigans are part of the territory for country acts that blow up so big that suburban mall rats and their baby-boomer parents know all the words to the songs.

What's different about Dixie Chicks is that once Lenny Kravitz's introductory "Fly Away" was through playing, the band managed the tricky feat of going pop while embracing its country roots, rather than running away from them.

Dixie Chicks don't have a pair of bozos open the show singing Billy Joel covers, as Tim McGraw and Faith Hill did last month. They have Nelson masterfully rambling through a 45 minutes of greatest hits and Townes Van Zandt songs.

And then they stand toe to toe with the Red-(and Gray)-Headed Stranger during their set, dueting with the legend on "Bloody Mary Morning" and making sure all their young fans holding "Chicks Rock!" signs know Willie is cool too.

Sure, the Chicks have a weakness for Bon Jovi-worthy power-ballad bombast. A cover of Sheryl Crow's "Strong Enough" was too obvious an effort to consolidate their VH1 audience. (Though the bluesy take on Bonnie Raitt's "Give It Up or Let Me Go" was "a winner.) And Maines' vocals, at high volume, were occasionally tinny and shrill.

But from the spousal-abuse reprisal of "Goodbye Earl" to the "mattress-dancing" escapades of the galloping "Sin Wagon," the Chicks perkily push the envelope with a purpose.

More often than not, they build their catchy pop songs around hot-picking musicianship and old-time bluegrass tunes. On "Ready to Run" and "Don't Waste Your Heart," the drums were way up high in the mix, but so was Seidel's sawing fiddle and Robison's whip-smart dobro.

One other observation from this male in a two-thirds-female audience: If Robison the banjo-, dobro- and guitar-playing Chick in a red-leather skirt (a brunette on Saturday) is not the sexiest woman in country music, I'll eat my cowboy hat.

Take that, Shania!

Return To Fly Tour page