Dixie Chicks honour Prince and Beyoncé
The Dixie Chicks haven’t recorded any original material in several years, but on Monday night the Texas trio proved it doesn’t need fresh hits to put on a great show.
Their two-hour concert at Hamilton’s First Ontario Centre was a classy blend of original hits and worthy covers, new and old, by some of the Chicks’ best-loved artists.
One of the highlights of the evening was a spectacular performance of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2U” before the crowd of about 11,000 fans.
“It’s hard to believe but Prince died just as we were starting this tour, and we quickly put this song in the set,” lead singer Natalie Maines said introducing the song. “So here’s a little tribute to Prince.”
It didn’t stop at Prince. Backed by a crack fivepiece band, The Chicks also honoured Beyoncé with a twangy version of “Daddy Lessons,” a number they sang with the R&B superstar at the Country Music Awards last October.
“It was one of the greatest moments of my life,” Maines said about their performance with Beyoncé. “I’ll say after childbirth, because that’s what you’re supposed to say.”
Cover songs have always been an important part of the Chicks’ repertoire. The trio — Maines, Mattie Maguire and Emily Robison — have mined the music of alt-country singer Patty Griffin for many years, scoring hits with “Truth 2” and “Top of the World.”
Describing Griffin as the group’s “favourite songwriter,” Dixie Chicks lead singer Natalie Maines introduced a third Griffin song, the dark “Don’t Let Me Die in Florida.”
Call me an old softy, but their version of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” can still bring a tear to any parent’s eye, including this one’s.
When the Dixie Chicks recorded the song 15 years ago, Maines told the audience that the group only had one child between them.
“I remember really feeling connected to the line ‘I’m getting older too,’” Maines said. “Now we’ve got nine babies … and that line is just annoying.”
There were also plenty of their own hits like “Wide Open Spaces,” “Sin Wagon,” “White Trash Wedding,” “Cowboy Take Me Away,” “The Long Way Around” and the powerful “Not Ready to Make Nice.”
Surprisingly, Maines kept the proceedings relatively apolitical. I can’t remember her even whispering the words “Donald Trump” throughout the entire evening. Strange for a woman who almost torpedoed the group’s career in 2003 with a jab at George W. Bush that now seems prescient.
OK. There was that comical video backdrop to “Ready to Run.” But it was an equal-opportunity kind of lampoon. Democrats and Republicans were all ridiculed — Trump and Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, all made to look equally silly.
Oh. Almost forgot. There was that little picture of Trump with pencilled horns coming out of his head that appeared on the rear screen during the fem-revenge anthem “Goodbye Earl.”
I think it flashed just as they were singing “Earl had to die.”