Reporting back after last night's Dixie Chicks/Storytellers taping

So this is where they had the concert (WONDERFUL old theatre, but this is the best picture I could find):



There were maybe 300 people in the audience--at most--and I ended up about five rows back, just to the right of center by a couple of seats (if you're looking out from the stage). They had the first few rows darkened (for televising reasons, I guess), but the next few rows, where I was, were lit the whole time. I was the first person in Natalie Maines' sightline that she could actually see, and were about 20 feet apart, so we ended up staring at each other for most of the concert. Kinda funny.

It was a super-intimate setting, all the songs were great--and since it was a taping, there were some do-overs and chatting between songs about the taping. The funniest do-over was for the song "Cowboy." In introducing the song the first time around, they point out that it's the only song that Martie Maguire (the one on fiddle) has ever written all by herself that the band recorded (she wrote it for her sister--so sweet). So 2/3 through the song, when it gets to Martie's fiddle solo (which she wrote), she went totally blank. She wheeled around to face Natalie, looking absolutely horrified. "I can't remember my solo!" she said. They ended up having to do that one over again at the end (and they huddled for about 10 minutes with her while she tried to remember the solo--she had a total mental block, which I thought was hilarious). So, the way the show will air, she gets wild applause at the end of the solo, which is funny to me, because it'll sound like we were all just really impressed with the solo, when really everybody was cheering her for finally remembering it.

But the BEST moment of the whole night was when they did "Not Ready to Make Nice." Now, keep in mind that they do large-venue tours these days, so the setting last night was much, much more intimate than they've been used to for awhile (which of course is my favorite way to see anybody play). The producer stood on stage before the show started, telling us what we could and could not do during the taping. "Do not stand up, please stay seated at all times during the show, because if you stand up, you may block a camera." So, everybody was minding the instructions pretty well up to then. They did "Not Ready to Make Nice" about halfway through the concert, and of course talked about why they wrote the song and what it means to them. After Natalie's vocal bridge halfway through the song (that ends with the lines "how in the world could the words that I say drive somebody so over the edge that he'd write me a letter telling me I'd better shut up and sing or my life will be over"), everybody just went nuts applauding, and all three Chicks literally took a step backwards, overwhelmed. But at the end of the song--I've never experienced anything like it at a concert before. The place just EXPLODED--instant and extended (for several minutes) standing ovation (even though we weren't supposed to stand up) and you could just FEEL the emotion in the room. All three of them teared up and started to cry, and most of the audience did, too (me included). It took them a few minutes to compose themselves, and Natalie stepped to the microphone long enough to say (still all choked up) "wow--y'all took my breath away."

Part of that emotion obviously comes from the sympathy we all have for what they've--especially Natalie--been put through for speaking their mind, but I think a bigger part of it is because everybody identifies with it to an extent because of six long years of being told you're anti-American if you disagree with Bush. That song speaks for millions of people who haven't had an outlet to speak for themselves, and I think that was a big part of the emotion that poured out last night.

The show was beyond great. It'll air sometime later this fall on VH1, and also be released on DVD. Y'all all better watch it! ;-)

I would have loved to have been there. I am a fan of neo-traditional country and bluegrass and it burns me up what has happened to these women, totally and completely aside from from the political aspect, because of the new fans they brought to country. I mean here were three gorgeous, cosmopolitan looking young blonde females willing to play this kind of music, and two of them were extremely accoplished on traditional instruments (banjo, slide guitar, mandolin, fiddle)...I mean in my eyes they were a gift from the heavens to country music since all we had up to that point is Dwight Yoakam and Emmylou and whoever she was working with at the time. (I know some people say Allison Kraus but she bores me to tears; thank God Rhonda Vincent has come along and is showing people what Union Station should have been playing this whole time). And anyway, these women who were the best thing to hit country music in eons got completely crucified and cast out over one comment...and still haven't been forgiven. It's unbelieveable, really. So, thanks for letting me know that they are getting gratitude still. I was a little upset when one of them said they didn't feel part of country music any more and that breaks my heart because to have two virtuosos in a band like that and not have them playing their instruments just seems like such a waste. I hope they will reconsider and do more bluegrass instrumention in their songs than they did on this album (fingers crossed).

In introducing "Wide Open Spaces," they talked about how they had to fight to get that one on the album (and were later vindicated, as it was the only #1 single from the album). Emily said the producer told her very condescendingly that "if we do this, we'll have to take out the banjo (they didn't, as you know), because you can't do banjo in country music." She said she cracked up, because if you can't do banjo in country music, where CAN you do it?

I agree--I love these women's bluegrass chops, and I don't think they'll abandon them anytime soon.

I love these kinds of behind-the-scenes reviews. :-)

"Shakespeare: The Storyteller of Storyteller". :D

It got RAVE reviews at the Toronoto Film Festival a week or so ago. Here's a teeny clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU-VWpKg8ZM

Can't wait to see it.

bookmarking K&R