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Dixie Chicks Begin Tour in S.C. Concert: EVERYBODY LOVES FRENCHY!
ABCNEWS.COM ^ | TODAY | AP

Posted on 05/01/2003 9:30:44 PM PDT by Cinnamon Girl

The Dixie Chicks let the music speak for themselves at least for the first 10 minutes of their first concert.

"We have a plan for this," lead singer Natalie Maines said after the band's first set Thursday night. "If you're here to boo, we welcome that. We're going to give you 15 seconds to do that."

And when Maines counted to three, the sold-out crowd erupted in cheers and the Chicks broke into "Long Time Gone."

There was never a doubt the 15,000-seat Bi-Lo Center supported the Chicks. They spent the time between acts doing the wave and urging the band to come out.

Finally they did. If there was a boo as the band rose from below the stage and a 40-foot drapery lifted, no one could hear it.

The cheers Thursday night were a lot different from what the band has been hearing.

The group's popularity has taken a beating since Maines made a negative remark about President Bush.

Tickets for the 15,000-seat arena were sold out before Maines' comments. However, a radio host has pushed for fans here to trade in their tickets for an anti-Chicks concert, and about 15 protesters milled outside the venue before the main event.

Protesters carried sings saying "The three French hens" and "Nothing Dixie about these Chicks."

The Dixie Chicks controversy began when Maines told a London audience March 10: "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas."

The comment was made as war was looming with Iraq, and Maines later apologized.

However, sales of their album "Home" have dropped sharply and many country radio stations pulled their music from their playlists. In recent interviews, the trio has said their lives, and the lives of their families, have been threatened.

Maines "said something in another country she shouldn't have said," said Doug Gray, lead singer of the Marshall Tucker Band, which is performing at Thursday's alternative concert, to be held 30 miles away in Spartanburg.

But some people, including Bruce Springsteen, have come to the group's defense, and even in South Carolina, home of many flag-waving patriots, the group has plenty of supporters.

"Just as people are unhappy with Natalie Maines, people are unhappy with us," said nationally syndicated radio talk show host Mike Gallagher, who is promoting the anti-Dixie Chicks concert.

Gray, a former sergeant in Vietnam, said he also received threats but it's not going to stop him from taking the stage. He knows his concert probably won't affect the Dixie Chicks, which have sold out most of the 59 concerts for this tour.

"It's not going to hurt them as much as people would like it to," Gray said. But "it's really good for us."

At least 100 holders of the highest-priced Dixie Chicks tickets traded in their tickets for free VIP passes to the show, according to Gallagher. Listeners were being urged to donate money to help buy tickets for military families to attend the event. Not all of the 3,200 tickets had been sold by midday Thursday.

The family of 20-year-old Marine Pvt. Nolen Ryan Hutchings, who died in Iraq, lives in a Spartanburg suburb and said they planned to attend the Marshall Tucker show. A ceremony was planned during the concert to honor the fallen soldier.

Metal detectors will be used for the Dixie Chicks' show, and there will be a significant security presence for the Marshall Tucker Band show, organizers said.

Clearly the controversy was on everyone's mind. Opening act Joan Osborne took less than 10 minutes before she addressed the crowd, urging them to cheer for the Chicks.

"Unless you've been living under a rock, you know what these girls have been going through the last month," said Osborne, who got cheers when she asked the crowd to show her a "sample of the love that's going to come their way when they get on stage."


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I got the impression there was going to be all kinds of protesting. Do the people who went to the concert just not care, agree, or didn't know about the controversy? Just wondering.
1 posted on 05/01/2003 9:30:44 PM PDT by Cinnamon Girl
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To: Cinnamon Girl
Unfortunately most people do not care.
2 posted on 05/01/2003 9:33:14 PM PDT by Militiaman7
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To: Cinnamon Girl
Joan Osborne (opening act for the Chicks), "One Of Us."

If God had a name, what would it be and would you call it to his face? If you were faced with him in all his Glory, what would you ask if you had just one question?

Yeah, yeah, God is great Yeah, yeah, God is good Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us? Just a stranger on the bus Tryin to make His way home

If God had a face, what would it look like and would you wanna see If seeing meant that you would have to believe in things like Heaven and Jesus and the Saints and all the Prophets and...

Yeah, yeah, God is great Yeah, yeah, God is good Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah

ps---Joan is also an abortion activist and a director of Planned Parenthood.

I guess the Dixie Chicks' choice of opening act show how much they think of their fans.

3 posted on 05/01/2003 9:44:07 PM PDT by gg188
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To: Cinnamon Girl
I think most of the people who bought tickets to the Dixie Chicks concert probably bought them because they like the music, and don't care about their feelings on politics.
4 posted on 05/01/2003 9:44:50 PM PDT by halfdome
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To: Cinnamon Girl
Because the source is ABCNEWS, it is presumptively false or spun. I would love to hear from someone who was actually at the event. It will be disappointing (and uncharacteristic for ABCNEWS) if this account is true. The Dixie Chicks are to be reviled.
5 posted on 05/01/2003 9:48:41 PM PDT by Zebra
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To: Militiaman7; Grampa Dave; farmfriend; Phil V.; AuntB; Boot Hill
"Unfortunately most people do not care."

Most people don't even think about how much money they earn over their "take home pay!" Even when they get too far in debt... they just buy tickets to some escape mechanism, like a theme park, movie or concert.

They can't even think about working with a financial professional to compose a written financial strategy for their feeble futures... they think somebody's going to help them out, like the government.

Maybe they'll git lucky and the lottery will make it all come out right. They can't imagine why anyone would care if some entertainers insulted their own nation or it's troops or especially their C in C!!!

6 posted on 05/01/2003 9:49:00 PM PDT by SierraWasp (Media Advisory: Don't believe anything you hear and only half of what you see!!!)
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To: Cinnamon Girl
Do the people who went to the concert just not care, agree, or didn't know about the controversy?

They don't care. When you hang out a lot in places like this, among people who do care, it's easy to be lulled into a false sense of thinking things are different. When you start sampling the public at large, you find out real quickly that very few people stand on principle if it involves any sacrifice from them, even something as petty and meaningless as not listening to a few songs. That's sad, but that's reality.

MM

7 posted on 05/01/2003 9:53:33 PM PDT by MississippiMan
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To: All
Anyone watching Elvis' daughter perform on Leno tonight? Yikes, she's AWFUL!
8 posted on 05/01/2003 9:55:13 PM PDT by bonfire
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To: Cinnamon Girl
The source may say ABC "News" but it reeks of Entertainment Tonight....
9 posted on 05/01/2003 9:57:36 PM PDT by JoJo Gunn (Help control the Leftist population. Have them spayed or neutered....)
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To: bonfire
No watching O'Reilly. He just had a clip of Garafalo on the View this am. Joy Behar was asking her (sarcastically) when she was going on his show to apologize.
10 posted on 05/01/2003 9:57:53 PM PDT by pnz1
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To: pnz1
What was her answer? (coward that she is)
11 posted on 05/01/2003 9:58:38 PM PDT by bonfire
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To: bonfire
No, she won't. She said something to the effect about Fox News that "in their world they won" or something inane like that. It was a quick clip.
12 posted on 05/01/2003 9:59:45 PM PDT by pnz1
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To: bonfire
Anyone watching Elvis' daughter perform on Leno tonight? Yikes, she's AWFUL!

I thought it was just me who thought she sucked and wasn't that good because it was a live performance. It was bad.

13 posted on 05/01/2003 10:00:17 PM PDT by Hillarys Gate Cult ("Read Hillary's hips. I never had sex with that woman.")
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To: Cinnamon Girl
Although Greenville, SC went 2-1 Bush in the 2000 election, that still leaves about 44,000 people who voted for Gore. Now we know where 15,000 of them were tonight.
14 posted on 05/01/2003 10:02:15 PM PDT by Bonaparte
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To: pnz1
Maybe inane isn't the right word for that. Anyway, I don't think she'll be on O'Reilly or anywhere else apologizing.
15 posted on 05/01/2003 10:03:52 PM PDT by pnz1
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To: All
We need a chix protest war room.
16 posted on 05/01/2003 10:08:49 PM PDT by longtermmemmory
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To: Cinnamon Girl
Even if this account were true (ABC is immediately suspect), one would not expect people to pay for the right to protest the Dipsy Twits.

I rather think the people that matter in all of this - those with the money to sponsor and support them in the future- have made up their minds.

I fully expect the Twits to make their next concert tour on the backwater county fair circuit
17 posted on 05/01/2003 10:08:58 PM PDT by IncPen
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To: IncPen
They are quite fortunate to have sold out their tickets before they opened their big mouth. They still turned off a huge part of their following. What we don't know behind the scenes is how many tickets that were originally bought were sold to other people (much cheaper). The true measure of the backlash will be in CD sales and FUTURE sales of live performance tickets.
18 posted on 05/01/2003 10:20:49 PM PDT by winner3000
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To: MississippiMan
you hit the nail on the head!! i have been saying for a long time something drastic has to happen to us before the people wake up. i was wrong, nothing will wake them up.
19 posted on 05/01/2003 10:20:53 PM PDT by aged
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To: Hillarys Gate Cult
She can't hit a note. She's one hard-core gal and the poor thing has just NOTHING to say.
20 posted on 05/01/2003 10:39:05 PM PDT by bonfire
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