The Fly Tour was the
Dixie Chicks
The Chicks (previously known as Dixie Chicks) are an American country music band from Dallas, Texas. Since 1995, the band has consisted of Natalie Maines (lead vocals, guitar) and sisters Martie Maguire (vocals, fiddle, mandolin, guitar) and E ...
' 2000 debut headlining
concert tour
A concert tour (or simply tour) is a series of concerts by an artist or group of artists in different cities, countries or locations. Often concert tours are named to differentiate different tours by the same artist and to associate a specific to ...
in over 80 cities in North America in support of their album ''
Fly
Flies are insects of the Order (biology), order Diptera, the name being derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwing ...
''.
History
Announced in mid-April 2000,
this was the Dixie Chicks' first headlining tour.
Moreover, the group was jumping directly to playing mostly in
arena
An arena is a large enclosed platform, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theatre, musical performances, or sporting events. It is composed of a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for spectators ...
s.
Since the sudden jump in the group's success in 1998, they had played as a supporting act for
Tim McGraw
Samuel Timothy McGraw (born May 1, 1967) is an American country singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He has released 16 studio albums (11 for Curb Records, four for Big Machine Records and one for Arista Nashville). 10 of those album ...
and as part of the George Strait Country Music Festival and
Lilith Fair
Lilith Fair was a concert tour and travelling music festival, founded by Canadian musician Sarah McLachlan, Nettwerk Music Group's Dan Fraser and Terry McBride, and New York talent agent Marty Diamond. It took place during the summers of 1997 ...
, seeking to expose themselves to diverse audiences in building a fan base.
The live reputation the group developed for their instrumental prowess and performance strengths
led to them embarking upon an ambitious, high-profile, large-venue tour of their own.
Begun at the start of June 2000 with five dates in Canada, and with occasional two-week breaks in between legs, the tour was originally scheduled to end in September. However, after having grossed over $25 million for about 50 dates,
and averaging about 13,000 fans per show,
it was extended until early December,
when it concluded with four dates in the Chicks' native
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
.
In terms of commercial impact,
LiveDaily
LiveDaily was a music and entertainment site owned by Ticketmaster, created in 1998 and seen in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom. It provided news updates, tour announcements, and ticketing information relative to Ticketmaster. Its ...
termed the tour "a runaway success",
and it came at a time when the country music genre was in a box-office slump.
It represented an innovation in a business sense, as three different promoters were used, covering different geographical regions of the country, rather than the more typical use of a different local promoter at each stop.
Chicks management did this in order to get more consistent messaging in marketing and promotion, which itself was aided by an over $3 million national advertising campaign.
The comically themed commercials showed the Chicks as touring neophytes, learning how to smash banjos and tear up hotel rooms.
Tour sponsors were MusicCountry.com and
CMT, while one dollar of each ticket sale was donated to the
World Wildlife Fund
The World Wide Fund for Nature Inc. (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the Wo ...
.
In the end, the Fly Tour grossed over $47 million,
with an average attendance of over 12,000.
It was the biggest country music tour in 2000 by any single act
(trailing only the joint
Tim McGraw
Samuel Timothy McGraw (born May 1, 1967) is an American country singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He has released 16 studio albums (11 for Curb Records, four for Big Machine Records and one for Arista Nashville). 10 of those album ...
–
Faith Hill
Audrey Faith McGraw (; born September 21, 1967), known professionally as Faith Hill, is an American singer and actress. She is one of the most successful country music artists of all time, having sold more than 40 million albums worldwide.
Hill' ...
Soul2Soul Tour
The Soul2Soul 2000 Tour was the first joint concert tour by American country singers, and husband and wife, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. The concert tour began in Atlanta in July 2000, and ended later that year in December in Orlando. The tour's s ...
)
[ pp. 139–140.] and the sixth highest-grossing tour of any genre during the year.
For 2000, the tour was nominated for
Pollstar
''Pollstar'' is a trade publication for the concert and live music industry. The publication was purchased by Oak View Group, a venue consultancy founded by Tim Leiweke and Irving Azoff, in July 2017.
History and profile
Founded in 1981 in Fre ...
's most important award, that of Major Tour of the Year, but lost out to the
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Reunion Tour
The Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Reunion Tour was a lengthy, top-grossing concert tour featuring Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band that took place over 1999 and 2000.
The tour was the first set of regular concerts given by Spr ...
.
It did however win Pollstar's Personal Manager of the Year award for the group's manager, Simon Renshaw,
who had negotiated the unusual promotion arrangements.
The tour also had a cultural effect: the ''Encyclopedia of the Great Plains'' stated that the Fly Tour "gained a life of its own, making the Dixie Chicks a pop-cultural phenomenon, with young and enthusiastic audiences flocking" to see the group.
The show
The shows themselves attracted both parents and their children.
In particular, young girls could be seen dressing as their favorite member of the trio.
Slogans such as "Chicks Rule!" and "Chicks Kick Ass!" were prevalent during the tour.
Production values were emphasized for the show, with eight trucks required to haul it.
A six-man band backed the three Chicks.
Stage and show design involved members of the
Cirque du Soleil
Cirque du Soleil (, ; "Circus of the Sun" or "Sun Circus") is a Canadian entertainment company and the largest contemporary circus producer in the world. Located in the inner-city area of Saint-Michel, it was founded in Baie-Saint-Paul on 16 Ju ...
team,
including
lighting designer
In theatre, a lighting designer (or LD) works with the director, choreographer, set designer, costume designer, and sound designer to create the lighting, atmosphere, and time of day for the production in response to the text while keeping ...
Luc Lafortune
Luc Lafortune (born September 1958) is a Canadian lighting designer for the entertainment industry as well as one of the original designers of the Cirque du Soleil.
Career
Lafortune studied at Dawson College, and then McGill University, where ...
.
The stage was surrounded by a curtain that resembled a pair of
jeans
Jeans are a type of pants or trousers made from denim or dungaree cloth. Often the term "jeans" refers to a particular style of trousers, called "blue jeans", with copper-riveted pockets which were invented by Jacob W. Davis in 1871 and paten ...
, complete with a working
zipper
A zipper, zip, fly, or zip fastener, formerly known as a clasp locker, is a commonly used device for binding together two edges of textile, fabric or other flexible material. Used in clothing (e.g. jackets and jeans), luggage and other Bag, ba ...
.
Various interactive pre-show activities kept the audience busy,
as a huge remote-controlled mechanical fly circled over the audience.
Then the show began, by the zipper dropping and the curtain falling away.
The Dixie Chicks' generally performed for about an hour and a half.
The themes of the show veered between love songs and declarations of female independence, with the opener "
Ready to Run" and the climactic "
Goodbye Earl
"Goodbye Earl", written by Dennis Linde, is a country music song. Initially recorded by the band Sons of the Desert for an unreleased album in the late 1990s, the song gained fame when it was recorded by Dixie Chicks on their fifth studio album, '' ...
" both exemplifying the latter.
Video screens would sometimes show the
music video
A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a m ...
s that went with a song, and other times would show humorous interludes, such as the trio's own fashion disasters from the past.
Other stage effects included a night full of stars with a setting moon for "
Cowboy Take Me Away
"Cowboy Take Me Away" is a song by recorded American country music group Dixie Chicks, written by Martie Maguire and Marcus Hummon. It was released in November 1999 as the second single from their album ''Fly''. The song's title is derived from ...
", and bubbles representing snow falling from the rafters for "
Cold Day in July
"Cold Day in July" is a country music song written by Richard Leigh.
Two artists recorded the song in 1992, Suzy Bogguss on her album '' Voices in the Wind'' and Joy Lynn White on her debut album, ''Between Midnight & Hindsight''. White's versio ...
".
The main set generally finished with what would become a furious concert staple of theirs, "Sin Wagon"; for the encores, "Goodbye Earl" – the song of the moment for Chicks fans
– was often performed with the three Chicks spread out among the audience in different corners of the venue,
while "
Wide Open Spaces" was the occasion for a mass sing-along.
By the later stages of the tour, lead singer
Natalie Maines
Natalie Louise Maines (born October 14, 1974) is an American singer. She is the lead vocalist for the all-female country band The Chicks.
In 1995, after leaving Berklee College of Music, Maines was recruited by the Dixie Chicks to replace thei ...
was visibly pregnant with her first child,
and was able to rest during the middle section of the show, which featured the trio performing numbers such as
Sheryl Crow
Sheryl Suzanne Crow (born February 11, 1962) is an American musician, singer, songwriter and actress. Her music incorporates elements of rock, pop, country, folk, and blues. She has released eleven studio albums, five compilations and three li ...
's "
Strong Enough" while sitting on a couch.
Critical reaction to the Fly Tour shows was generally positive. ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' called it "a slick, good-natured show that seesawed between clinging love songs and declarations of female independence."
''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
'' said that while the group "can pop and rock with conviction", at other times the show represented "stone-cold, hard-core honky tonk at its best", and that the youthful audience's roars of approval for the sisters' instrumental virtuosity – which it compared to those
Eddie Van Halen
Edward Lodewijk Van Halen ( , ; January 26, 1955 – October 6, 2020) was an American musician and songwriter. He was the guitarist, keyboardist, backing vocalist, and primary songwriter of the rock band Van Halen, which he co-founded along ...
got for
guitar solo
A guitar solo is a melodic passage, instrumental section, or entire piece of music, pre-written (or improvised) to be played on a classical guitar, electric guitar or an acoustic guitar. In 20th and 21st century traditional music and popular m ...
s – was "damn near revolutionary".
''Rolling Stone'' did criticize the "overly ambitious stage and lighting design" for detracting from the on-stage intimacy between the three group members and their backing band,
while ''
The University News'' praised it, saying the show "appealed to the eyes with its unique stage and interesting special effects."
''
The Daily Universe
''The Universe'' (formerly ''The Daily Universe'') is the official student newspaper for Brigham Young University (BYU) and was started in 1956. History
BYU's student-published newspaper was first titled ''White and Blue'' (1898–1921), later bec ...
s reviewer called the group "the most exciting country-and-western group I have ever seen," while ''KAOS2000'' magazine said "this trio of hotties know how to put on a show and definitely had control of the big arena stage."
A
Citysearch.com writer said that Maines' voice was not the strongest in performance, but benefited from the joint strength when combined with the sisters'.
Broadcasts and recordings
The August shows at Washington, D.C.'s
MCI Center
Capital One Arena is an indoor arena in Washington, D.C. Located in the Penn Quarter neighborhood, the arena sits atop the Gallery Place rapid transit station of the Washington Metro. It has been largely considered to be a commercial success an ...
were filmed and used as the basis for an
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...
network special called, "Dixie Chicks: On the Fly". The special aired November 20, 2000.
Opening acts
*
Patty Griffin
Patricia Jean Griffin (born March 16, 1964) is an American singer, songwriter, and musician.Griffin, Patrici She is a vocalist and plays guitar and piano. She is known for her stripped-down songwriting style in the folk music genre. Her songs ha ...
(select shows)
*
Ricky Skaggs
Rickie Lee Skaggs (born July 18, 1954), known professionally as Ricky Skaggs, is an American neotraditional country and bluegrass singer, musician, producer, and composer. He primarily plays mandolin; however, he also plays fiddle, guitar, ma ...
(select shows)
*
Joe Ely
Joe Ely (born February 9, 1947) is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist, whose music touches on honky-tonk, Texas Country, Tex-Mex and rock and roll.
He has had a genre-crossing career, performing with Bruce Springsteen, Uncle Tupelo ...
(September, select shows)
*
Willie Nelson
Willie Hugh Nelson (born April 29, 1933) is an American country musician. The critical success of the album ''Shotgun Willie'' (1973), combined with the critical and commercial success of ''Red Headed Stranger'' (1975) and '' Stardust'' (197 ...
(October, select shows)
*Grupo Vida
(October, select shows)
*The Maines Brothers Band
(Lubbock)
Setlist
#"
Ready to Run"
#"
There's Your Trouble
"There's Your Trouble" is a song written by Mark Selby and Tia Sillers and recorded by American country music band Dixie Chicks (now known as the Chicks). It was released in March 1998 as the second single from the band's fourth studio album, '' Wi ...
"
#"Hello Mr. Heartache"
#"Don't Waste Your Heart"
#"
Without You"
#"
If I Fall You're Going Down with Me"
#"
I Can Love You Better
"I Can Love You Better" is a song written by Pamela Brown Hayes and Kostas, and recorded by American country music group Dixie Chicks. It was released in October 1997 as their debut single and the first from their album '' Wide Open Spaces'', and ...
"
#"
You Were Mine
"You Were Mine" is a song recorded by American country music group Dixie Chicks. Released in December 1998 as the fourth single from the album '' Wide Open Spaces'', the song spent two weeks atop the U.S. Country singles chart in March 1999; th ...
"
#"Give It Up or Let Me Go"
#"Video Sequence"
#"Let Him Fly"
#"
Heartbreak Town"
#"
Strong Enough"
#"
Brilliancy"
(and/or "Roanoke" with a snippet of "Dixie Chicken")
#"Let 'Er Rip"
#"
Tonight the Heartache's on Me"
#"
Cold Day in July
"Cold Day in July" is a country music song written by Richard Leigh.
Two artists recorded the song in 1992, Suzy Bogguss on her album '' Voices in the Wind'' and Joy Lynn White on her debut album, ''Between Midnight & Hindsight''. White's versio ...
"
#"
Some Days You Gotta Dance"
#"
Cowboy Take Me Away
"Cowboy Take Me Away" is a song by recorded American country music group Dixie Chicks, written by Martie Maguire and Marcus Hummon. It was released in November 1999 as the second single from their album ''Fly''. The song's title is derived from ...
"
#"
Sin Wagon
"Sin Wagon" is a song written by Natalie Maines, Emily Erwin, and Stephony Smith and recorded by the Dixie Chicks for their 1999 album '' Fly''. Though never released as a single, it charted as an album cut. It has been featured in five tours: ...
"
;Encore
#
"Goodbye Earl
"Goodbye Earl", written by Dennis Linde, is a country music song. Initially recorded by the band Sons of the Desert for an unreleased album in the late 1990s, the song gained fame when it was recorded by Dixie Chicks on their fifth studio album, '' ...
"
#" Wide Open Spaces"
There were some minor changes to this order depending on the venue and the opening act. "Am I the Only One (Who's Ever Felt This Way)", "Loving Arms", "Truth No.2", and "Merry Christmas From the Family" were also played during the tour.
Tour dates
;Cancellations and rescheduled shows
External links
Dixie Chicks Website
References
{{Dixie Chicks
The Chicks concert tours
2000 concert tours