Dixie Chicks not backing down
I went to a Dixie Chicks concert last night. It was a lot of fun - their new album rocks (for the most part) and the venue in Shepherd's Bush is a bit of a special place for them, since that's where Natalie Maines uttered the fateful phrase, "Just so you know, we're embarassed that George Bush is from Texas".
That comment resulted in the Chicks being banished from most radio stations in the southern states, and in particular, Clearchannel communications, the company that holds a stranglehold on much of the radio broadcasting industry in the US, blacklisted them, preventing any of Clearchannel's subsidiary stations from airing the DIxie Chick's music.
The effect on their sales, their profile and their exposure to listeners was devastating. That's what you get for airing a personal view in the company of those for whom free speech is less important than the right to hold a gun.
Given all of the above, one might have expected them to be a little more cautious this time. To perhaps make their point in a more oblique way, so that everyone could interpret their words in a way that didn't offend them. But that would have been ducking the bullet, kowtowing to the likes of ClearChannel and compromising themselves. In what was certainly a prepared moment, Natalie Maines brought up the subject early on in the concert, referring to the pain of the last two years and the comment made so long ago in exactly the same place on exactly the same stage. Then she made the exact same comment again. Clearly.
Then they played another song before the cheering had had time to die down.
I was impressed. It may sound imprudent, it may sound like they're asking for it, but in reality, it was the only option open to them. To say they regretted the words the first time they were spoken would not have removed their meaning, and would have made them no new friends. Some blinkered Republicans would have beaten their chests claiming they have given the Dixie Chicks what for, but the only reason to claim they regretted their prior statement would have been to avoid the financial pain being inflicted on them. It would have lacked integrity.
The Chicks aren't being pushed around, and good for them.
Politics aside, it was a great concert. This was in large part thanks to the crowd, who were all very much up for it. The Chicks have fantastic music, great voices and good material, but they don't fill up the stage. They don't generate the energy and power of some more charismatic stage personalities. Then again, they haven't been on stage for two years, so perhaps we should cut them some slack on that front.
What they do well is provide a mix of songs from all of their albums, with the best of the most recent material occuring a little past the half-way mark of the concert - "Not Ready to Make Nice", the first single to be released from the new album, was particularly well received. Where the audience was most enthusiastic, however, was the best of the older material, with everyone in the room singing along to every word. "Travelling Soldier" in particular was sung along to word for word by everyone in the section I was sitting in.
The Chicks perform the songs on stage almost exactly as they are on the albums, which is perhaps a pity, since a more personal touch usually leaves me with the feeling that I've experienced something a bit different by seeing them in person.
I had two regrets, the first of which was the absence of "There's Your Trouble" from the set, since it's the song that first caught my attention and caused me to buy Wide Open Spaces, their first album. My second regret is that they chose to open with "Lubbock or Leave It", which is one of the only two songs on their album which doesn't work for me - it would have been nice to launch into the concert with one of their greats, a sort of "we're back and as good as ever", rather than a song which sounds like a rant, both in terms of its lyrics and its melody.
As a whole, the evening was excellent, the audience was extremely happy to see them back, the Dixie Chicks as musically strong as ever and unbowed by the political savagery they've had to endure. Congratulations.
Posted by nlvp at June 16, 2006 05:32 PM