LIVE: Dixie Chicks with Avalanche City – Perth Arena, 5 April, 2017

Shane | 6 April 2017 | Reply

LIVE: Dixie Chicks with Avalanche City – Perth Arena, 5 April, 2017
Reviewed by Kevin Curran
Photography by Paul Dowd

Straight up, as a guy that normally reviews Rock and Metal gigs , I left this show really impressed by the female country trio out of Dallas, Texas known as The Dixie Chicks.

A full – or near to capacity – crowd came out to catch these talented ladies perform. When you think of country music The Dixie Chicks are a household name, and I knew they were big – but I didn’t realise the extent until seeing it with my own eyes!

Opening with Taking The Long Way Round, the trio and their mostly Australian backing band had a nice rich warm sound from the get go.

The gals – Natalie Maines, Martie Maguire and Emily Robison – never hit a bad note throughout their polished performance, with some sweet three-part harmonies all accompanied by some great visual effects on the song Lubbock Or Leave It.

No two songs sounded the same throughout the show, the different tempos creating enjoyable variety, especially going from ballad Easy Silence and then picking the pace up for a song like Long Time Gone.

[Show picture list]

Splitting the set up, the girls took a quick break while the screen played a car race of them with the soundtrack being a heavy country version of Ace Of Spades by Motorhead: horns up to that!

They came back out with a more stripped back acoustic flurry of songs which even included a cover of Beyonce’s Daddy Lessons.

For the tail end of the set it was back to full band mode, finishing strong with hits Landslide, Cowboy Take Me Away, Wide Open Spaces, and the anti-George Bush song Not Ready To Play Nice in the encore.

The Dixie Chicks sounded great, and as an outsider to this musical genre I can only say that these gals put on an excellent show that looked great.