The clouds make good on their promise as the Chicks embark on the unapologetic Not Ready to Make Nice, but the rain isn’t a match for Natalie Maines, Emily Strayer and Martie Maguire in three-part harmony. The pop-country icons are locked in all night, skipping around technical difficulties and swirling wind with grit, humour and outlandish musicianship.
They emerge after a blast of Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation, its sentiment pointed given the long shadow cast by the Chicks (they cut the “Dixie” in 2020 due to the term’s ties to the Confederate south) being ostracised from the country establishment two decades ago after coming out against George W Bush and the Iraq war.
That the episode occurred when the trio were already ensconced as one of the most successful country acts of all time shows how far back their influence stretches. Older songs, such as Sin Wagon and Wide Open Spaces, flit between barn-burning virtuosity, particularly Maguire’s dazzling fiddle solos, and slick radio fare that set the table for artists including Taylor Swift and the night’s well-received opening act, Maren Morris.
But it’s material from 2020’s Gaslighter, a teeth-bared riff on divorce that served as their comeback LP, that really pops. Maines sells each kiss-off with glee, throwing up middle fingers and threatening to stomp a hole in the stage, while Julianna Calm Down is a marvel of melody and lyrical sleight of hand carried off with cut-glass vocal interplay.
There are moments when the staging helps to drive home the sharper edges of songs – during Tights on My Boat a video package shows Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump riding a rainbow unicorn as Maines sings “you’re going to get what’s coming to you” – but elsewhere it’s almost anti-spectacle. The screen behind the band is only fitfully in use, making the show feel small until some spotlights make a dent in the gloom, but they rise to this challenge and even manage to enliven a sit-down acoustic section, with Cowboy Take Me Away’s refrain simply too big to be contained by the arrangement.
Having already spent 14 years on the sidelines between 2006’s Taking the Long Way and Gaslighter, the added dislocation of the pandemic was likely hard to stomach. At one point, Maguire removes her in-ear monitors to better hear the crowd singing, her smile letting slip what it means for three voices to become a few thousand.
• This review was amended on 28 June 2023. An earlier version said that the video screen died; in fact there was no technical malfunction with the backdrop.
