Multiple Grammy-winning Texan country-pop juggernauts, The Chicks will make a triumphant return to Australia in October alongside special guest Elle King.
The band, formerly known as The Dixie Chicks, made up of Emily Strayer, Martie Maguire, and Natalie Maines, is making its first appearances in Australia in six years, following sold out 2017 Sydney and Melbourne shows and a headline slot at CMC Rocks in Queensland.A generous run of arena and winery concerts across Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Geelong, and the Hunter Valley has been lined up, before the group heads to New Zealand.
A recent Guardian review described The Chicks live experience in 2023 as 'barn-burning virtuosity and cut-glass vocals', so come to these concerts ready to party.
"Our fans are fantastic," Maines told the Houston Chronicle. "It feels awesome to have grandmothers through little kids there. I think we get a little worried at the start of every tour if the crowds are going to be the same, are they going to stand up the whole time and sing every word. And they do."
Since forming in 1989, the band has had many successes while facing considerable challenges as renegades of country music. The thing that has held them together is the bond the trio has always had, says Maines.
"For me, there's a comfort and a trust," she told Elle. "It's never hard to be around each other. You can really feel free to say, 'No, that's not good, but what about this?' 'You're a little out of time.' 'Can you re-sing that, you're a little pitchy?'.
"Nobody's getting their egos bruised. You're never walking on eggshells. That's what makes working together an easy place to always go back to, and a great place to always go back to."
The shows will be the band's first in Australia since dropping 'Dixie' from its name in 2020. It was a move to extricate themselves of the negative connotations associated with slavery in the former confederate states of America and came in the wake of the killing of George Floyd and the intensification of civil rights movements across the US.
An official press release at the time simply stated: 'If your voice held no power, they wouldn't try to silence you,' while 2020 album 'Gaslighter', the band's most recent and their first in 14 years, was critically acclaimed and commercially successful.
This followed years of being outspoken on political and social issues, including an early-2000s critique of George Bush's push towards war in Iraq which saw the band caught up in a media backlash and receiving death threats.
However, there was a positive side to many notoriously conservative country music fans turning on the band. "It set us free," Maines told the LA Times.
"It got us out of this box of country music, which we never wanted to be in and never felt like that's who we were. We didn't have to do any of that bullsh.t anymore."
They may have been one of the first victims of cancel culture before it was even a thing, but the band has learned to take it all in their stride.
"These days, everybody's saying anything and everything that crosses their mind and people are getting cancelled left and right," Maines told iNews. "I'm kind of proud to have been the first."
The Chicks 2023 Tour Dates
Thu 12 Oct - Adelaide Entertainment CentreSat 14 Oct - A Day On The Green @ Mt Duneed Estate (Geelong)
Mon 16 Oct - Rod Laver Arena (Melbourne)* sold out
Thu 19 Oct - Qudos Bank Arena (Sydney)
Sat 21 Oct - A Day On The Green @ Bimbadgen (Hunter Valley)
Sun 22 Oct - A Day On The Green @ Sirromet Wines (Brisbane)
Tue 24 Oct - Brisbane Entertainment Centre* sold out
Wed 25 Oct - Brisbane Entertainment Centre
