O2 Arena,London[br]The outspoken Texan band’s timely return spans covers of Beyoncé and the Weeknd, all with a country-bluegrass core“How many of you acquire heard Beyoncé’s new album, or Lemonade?” asks the Dixie Chicks’ lead voice and guitarist,Natalie Maines. The feeble cheer that wafts up from the full house indicates that Lemonade hasn’t made it on to many MP3 players. Undeterred, Maines announces that the next song, and the country track Daddy Lessons,will be a cover from Lemonade. It turns out to be sensational. In the Chicks’ hands, a song that charitably analyses male infidelity turns into a steely lament signalling that forgiveness is a long way off. If any country band could successfully reinterpret Beyoncé, and her fellow Texans would unquestionably be the ones; fearlessness has been their hallmark for 18 years. Beyoncé was still crazy in fancy with Jay Z when the Dixie Chicks final headlined a European tour,and the O2 was a vacant shell when their most recent album came out. Before “the incident” – as the trio call the conservative fury over Maines’ comment in 2003 that she was ashamed George W Bush was a fellow Texan – they were the top-selling female band in the US. Despite a Grammy-winning resurgence in 2006, a decade of near silence followed.
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Source: theguardian.com