The Chicks ruffle some feathers
The reactions (and, in some cases, overreactions) of people to Natalie Maines and the Dixie Chicks has been an interesting study in free speech rights and hyprocrisy. What I'm really interested in, though, is what happens when the rubber hits the road- i.e., when the Chicks go on tour.
From the angry phone calls in such cities as Memphis, Kansas City and Longview, Texas, you'd think Natalie Maines had claimed her group was "bigger than Jesus," as John Lennon once said of The Beatles.
Maines had told a London audience she was ashamed President Bush came from her home state of Texas. Later, in a statement, she apologized.
Some Dixie Chicks fans reported burning or ripping up tickets to the group's upcoming U.S. tour, which grossed a record-setting $49 million in ticket sales March 1. Radio stations set out trash bins where irate listeners could dump their CDs. In Bossier City, La., a station got a tractor to run over Chicks merchandise.
Michael Cruise at Houston's KKBQ-FM says his station sought a more temperate response: dropping the group from its playlist. "We're trying not to have people point to us and say, 'They're turning this into a promotion,' " he says. "I don't want to look back after we've gone to war and know that we were sitting here crushing things with a steamroller."
The Dixie Chicks' 59-city American tour is scheduled to begin May 1 in Greenville, S.C.
"My question for people who want to boycott is 'How long is long enough?' " says Brad Hansen of KTTS-FM in Springfield, Mo. "May 10 and 11, they'll be in Kansas City and St. Louis. My guess is, people will have their butts in the seats at those shows."
I'm not so sure that undertaking a US tour given the current climate is a wise idea, but I sure as hell wouldn't be scheduling any shows in Texas for the foreseeable future.
