Country collided with glam Saturday night when the Dixie Chicks played the Charleston Civic Center. The Dixie Chicks performed before a sold-out crowd for a solid two hours after opening act Ricky Skaggs left the stage.
The girls were promoting their sophomore release, Fly, which propelled them to country superstar status. The first song of the set was appropriately the first song released on the album, “Ready to Run,” which also appeared in the movie Runaway Bride.
The Dixie Chicks played a few upbeat songs before a “slide show” of baby pics of the girls, complete with playful cracks at each other. Three screens lowered and pictures of the Chicks appeared in chronological order through their childhoods. A high school cheerleading picture of lead singer Natalie Maines appeared as banjo player Emily Robison asked: “Were you the loudest cheerleader, Natalie?”
“Yeah, I was,” she said.
“Well, you might have been the loudest, but you sure had the smallest pom poms!” Emily snickered.
The Dixie Chicks played a string of slow songs after the slide show while the three were perched on a red velvet couch in the center of the stage. The lull in the song tempo was not a lull in entertainment, however. The girls played the title track “Fly,” along with several other songs from both of their albums, including Sheryl Crow’s “Strong Enough  ”
After the slow songs, fiddle player Martie Seidel led the Chicks and back-up band in a bluegrass medley. The girls had a lot of fun with the number, since bluegrass was the first type of music sisters Emily and Martie learned to play. The medley included the theme song to “Hee Haw” and the band’s namesake song “Dixie Chicken” originally by Little Feat.
The Chicks continued on through the short set, saving the best songs for last. Winding down the set was “Cold Day in July,” “Cowboy Take Me Away” and “Sin Wagon” from Fly. For “Cold Day in July,” fake snow machines showered flakes over the crowd as Natalie belted out the words. Seidel won a Best Songwriter Award for “Cowboy Take Me Away,” which she wrote about her husband. It is a powerful love song about a country girl stuck in the city longing for her cowboy to come rescue her.
Natalie lifted the title to “Sin Wagon” from a phrase in her favorite movie, Grease. It is a playful number about rebellion from men and morals, hence the line, “That’s right, I said mattress dancin’.”
Of course, the grand finale songs included what is probably the Dixie Chicks’ biggest hit from Fly, “Good-bye Earl.” When the lights went down before the grand finale, the girls went out into platforms set up in the crowd to play the song. Scenes from the video featuring Lauren Holly and Jane Krakowski (“Ally McBeal”) played on the screens above the stage.
Opener Ricky Skaggs gave a surprisingly good performance. He spun out old bluegrass favorites, in addition to new tunes from his new release Ancient Tones. His set was a good warm up for the energy of the Dixie Chicks’ show.
After Skaggs’ set, while crew members changed the stage, a curtain descended that was painted like a blue-jeans zipper fly. Nathan from the “The Real World Seattle” and a guy named Lance came out from either side of the stage to work up the crowd giving away T-shirts and front-row tickets. A huge blow-up fly buzzed out over the crowd “pooping out” T-shirts over the crowd as well. The between-sets entertainment was a good way to keep the crowd excited and pass the time while the crew changed stages.
Tickets to the sold-out concert were a bit high, going up to almost $50, but the extra cash was well spent. The audience involvement made the concert more exciting for everyone, not just those in the first few rows. The set was a little short, but that is understandable, considering lead singer Maines is three months pregnant, and the Chicks only had two albums worth of songs to choose from.
I would recommend catching a show sometime. Unfortunately, the Chicks are planning to take about a year off from the road to relax. You can always catch their first ever TV concert special on NBC on Nov. 20. It is not the real thing, but a great show is guaranteed.