We saw the Dixie Chicks last night at Madison Square Garden. They are terrific performers and put on a great concert.
The Garden was nearly filled. The audience was multicultural and intergenerational. I had thought we might be the oldest people there, but the audience ranged from seven to eighty. I talked with a seven-year-old girl in line who were there with her father. I asked her who's idea the concert was; she smiled and said, "My dad's. He rocks." Several people held signs that said, "I'm Gay, but I love chicks."
Their new single "I'm not ready to be nice", a response to the response about their comments about the Iraq War resonated with the audience. During "Mad as Hell", people held up signs that said "Thank You." My personal new favorite is "Lullaby"; it's a song to their seven children, but to this minister's ears, it would be a wonderful song for weddings.
For a few hours last night, my world felt hopeful and unified. If only the real world was.
3 comments:
They are good entertainers, but I wouldn't pay to see them. They are a bit over the top.
It seems the Dixie Chicks are one of the few performing groups who are willing to comment on current events, and who do so with any credibility. I've had several discussions with friends across generational gaps about what seems to me to be a relative lack of performing "artists" as such who could be deemed "the voice of a generation," or someone I would seek for a message of integrity and action. I could be wrong but it seems that music was such a definitive source of community and energy for the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam anti-war movement. In comparison, the musical "glue" of contemporary progressive movements is pathetic. Is it because such movements are too self-conscious or too fragmented or too recent to have defined themselves in retrospect through a singular piece of music, or do we no longer have any performers whom we can trust to have an informed artists' perspective?
I'm glad you enjoyed the concert!
politics schmolitics..they are great musicians and great performers...their music is the best ...if they were men would we be so critical????
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