Dixie Chicks treat crowd to cute experience
Youthful trio cranks out catchy upbeat tunes and sloppy slow
songs in pep rally atmosphere
By Chuck Klosterman, Akron-Beacon Journal
The Dixie Chicks opened last night's concert at Gund Arena with a gimmick, but it's
the kind of gimmick that's good. It's the kind of gimmick that 99 percent of their audience doesn't appreciate in theory,
yet completely understands in practice.
Here's how the Chicks start their show: The stage is veiled with a huge curtain,
and the curtain is painted to look like the crotch from a pair of women's blue jeans. There is a huge zipper down the front
of the curtain (this tour is conveniently supporting an album titled Fly -get it?). The concert starts when the zipper is
ripped to the ground.
Now, if Madonna did this, it would be erotic. If Ted Nugent did this, it would be
misogynistic. If Andy Warhol did this (and - actually - he did), it would be art. But when the Dixie Chicks do it, it's just
sort of . . . cute. This is what the Dixie Chicks are about: Playful sensuality than doesn't even seem like sex unless you
remind yourself that it is.
This initial moment, of course, only lasted four seconds, which forced us to sit
through about two more hours of concert. And was the music decent? More or less. The fast songs are honestly quite good and
the slow songs are honestly quite terrible. It's painfully sentimental, but the musicians are surprisingly loose and the hooks
are massive. Considering the parameters of the genre, it's certainly better than average. But the Dixie experience probably
always will be more interesting than the songs themselves.
The crowd for last night's show was probably 80 percent female. This is the kind
of audience that can (and will) sing along with every tune. Before the girls came on stage, members of the Chicks' road crew
(which inexplicably included "Nathan," a cast member from MTV's The Real World: Seattle) held what amounted to a pep rally
on the Gund floor.
The Chicks were supported by a six-piece band, but the larger focus surrounded the
revelation that singer Natalie Maines now has auburn hair. There was a time when all three females in the group were blonde,
but only fiddler player Martie Seidel retains her golden locks; banjo player Emily Robinson dyed her hair brunette before
the tour. I guess this is interesting news to somebody.
The evening's best song was the second one played, There's Your Trouble. Also of
note: Without You, a tune about the tragedy of divorce that was unspeakably boring, and that one song about killing the dude
from NYPD Blue.
Seidel is the true superstar of this group (at least musically), but the only person
anyone watches is Maines. She's the Bjork of Nashville: oddly shaped body, fleshy cheekbones, and weird fashion sense. Her
voice is credible and she can't dance. But this makes me like her more.
