Natalie Maines does not normally talk a great deal in concert. This may sound counterintuitive to say, since objectively there is no person in music history more famous for talking in concert than Natalie Maines. But she has always been more of a quality than quantity gal when it comes to that, so her legendary 2003 comment about being ashamed to share a home state with then-president George W.
Bush was more of an anomaly than an indicator that she or her bandmates are going to be prone to lengthy speeches at any given concert by the Chicks. Fortunately, the short current tour the group is wrapping up was custom-built to feature a steady stream of personal asides, which are welcome, if you happen to be a fan of the trio as personalities and not solely as musical talents. The main reason for that is that the outing is officially a celebration of the 20th anniversary of “Taking the Long Way,” the 2006 record that won five Grammys in total, including a rare Grammys sweep of the top three categories, album, record and song of the year.
Not much was revealed in advance about the exact format of the tour. As it turned out, the Chicks (nee: Dixie Chicks) were not only down for spending the first two-thirds of the concert performing “Taking the Long Way” in its 14-song entirety, but for providing between-song commentary on most of the tracks, along with background on the preceding events that ultimately led to this left turn of an album — including “the incident,” as the Bush flap has been euphemistically known in band circles for 23 years. This made for a rare treat, as Maines, Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer sat on stools on a riser for an hour and a half and went deep into “Storytellers” mode, engaging in a mixture of somewhat pre-scripted and fairly spontaneous dialogue before nearly all of the songs, also sometimes putting up documentary film clips on the big screen to further illustrate what was going down in the studio in the mid-2000s. (Some of the clips were from their “Shut Up and Sing” documentary, but many were unreleased.) The show fell into that rare sub-genre many of us love from a veteran performer: the docu-concert.
But the other reason for some added chatter during the tour was the timing, which was coincidental (seemingly?), leading up to — and, in Los Angeles, overlapping — the 2026 midterm elections. Their three-night stand at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood began Sunday, two nights before the nation went to the polls, followed by a show on election night Tuesday, with a wrap-up of the stint and the tour scheduled for Wednesday. (Wednesday’s show will be a make-up for the one that was supposed to happen Monday, but got canceled in the hours beforehand due to an unspecified band illness.) Naturally, the topical events of this week were bound to inspire a few thoughts comparing the current climate with the heated temperature that resulted in a lot of attempted Chick-broiling in 2003-4. Now we’re ashamed the President of the United States from the United States.” (Maines had made similar remarks earlier in the tour, and noted that these had been publicized enough that the White House issued an official statement “calling me a peanut head… or peanut brain, I can’t remember.” For the record, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said on Oct. 15, “Natalie Maines is a despicable nobody who clearly suffers from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has completely rotted her peanut-sized brain.”) The crowd of 3,400, skewed disproportionately toward progressive cowgirls, went nuts.
As they did later in the first act, when, before singing “I Hope,” Maines shared that they had recently visited the Obama museum, which gave them hope of again seeing a country that is not “run by a deranged nutjob.” The only other overt reference to current events came during the second act — the greatest-hits set — when Maines sang “White Trash Wedding” and followed the time-honored opening line “You can’t afford no ring” with the contemporary addendum: “Because gas prices are too high! And medical!” They expounded upon this a little more during Tuesday night’s show, when all three members fanned themselves with large “Fuck Trump” fans. There’s one word to describe the trio’s nearly quarter-century history of not backing down: Nice.
Not every artist who does a full-album throwback show plays the original record in order; some rearrange the sequence to put a big single at the end. But the Chicks adhered to original running order, which meant that “Not Ready to Make Nice” provided a natural climax to the show only three songs in. And anyway, sometimes gratification that isn’t delayed is the best kind.
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