The Fly Tour (2000) was the debut North American concert tour by country music band The Chicks' (formerly the Dixie Chicks), performing sold-out shows in over 80 cities across Canada and the contiguous United States. The tour was primarily in-support of their sophomore album Fly (1999), as well as featuring songs from their debut album, Wide Open Spaces (1998). The Chicks would also feature several new or specially-selected songs at various stops on the tour, as well as an instrumental bluegrass “jam” piece titled “Roanoke”, alternating with another instrumental called simple “Brilliancy”.
History
Announced in mid-April 2000,[1] this was the Dixie Chicks' first headlining tour.[2][3] Moreover, the group was jumping directly to playing mostly in arenas.[1] Since the sudden jump in the group's success in 1998, they had played as a supporting act for Tim McGraw and as part of the George Strait Country Music Festival and Lilith Fair, seeking to expose themselves to diverse audiences in building a fan base.[2] The live reputation the group developed for their instrumental prowess and performance strengths[4] led to them embarking upon an ambitious, high-profile, large-venue tour of their own.[3]
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,[2] and averaging about 13,000 fans per show,[2] it was extended until early December,[2] when it concluded with four dates in the Chicks' native Texas.
In terms of commercial impact, LiveDaily termed the tour "a runaway success",[2] and it came at a time when the country music genre was in a box-office slump.[1][3] 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.[3] 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.[3] The comically themed commercials showed the Chicks as touring neophytes, learning how to smash banjos and tear up hotel rooms.[1] Tour sponsors were MusicCountry.com and CMT, while one dollar of each ticket sale was donated to the World Wildlife Fund.[1]
In the end, the Fly Tour grossed over $47 million,[5] with an average attendance of over 12,000.[6] It was the biggest country music tour in 2000 by any single act[4] (trailing only the joint Tim McGraw–Faith HillSoul2Soul Tour)[7] and the sixth highest-grossing tour of any genre during the year.[5]
For 2000, the tour was nominated for Pollstar'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.[8] It did however win Pollstar's Personal Manager of the Year award for the group's manager, Simon Renshaw,[8] who had negotiated the unusual promotion arrangements.[3]
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.[9]
The show
The shows themselves attracted both parents and their children.[4][10] In particular, young girls could be seen dressing as their favorite member of the trio.[4] Slogans such as "Chicks Rule!" and "Chicks Kick Ass!" were prevalent during the tour.[4][11]
Production values were emphasized for the show, with eight trucks required to haul it.[3] A six-man band backed the three Chicks.[11] Stage and show design involved members of the Cirque du Soleil team,[3] including lighting designerLuc Lafortune.[1] The stage was surrounded by a curtain that resembled a pair of jeans, complete with a working zipper.[12] Various interactive pre-show activities kept the audience busy,[12] as a huge remote-controlled mechanical fly circled over the audience.[13] Then the show began, by the zipper dropping and the curtain falling away.[11]
The Dixie Chicks' generally performed for about an hour and a half.[11] 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" both exemplifying the latter.[14] Video screens would sometimes show the music videos that went with a song, and other times would show humorous interludes, such as the trio's own fashion disasters from the past.[14] Other stage effects included a night full of stars with a setting moon for "Cowboy Take Me Away", and bubbles representing snow falling from the rafters for "Cold Day in July".[12] 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[13] – was often performed with the three Chicks spread out among the audience in different corners of the venue,[11][12] while "Wide Open Spaces" was the occasion for a mass sing-along.[11]
By the later stages of the tour, lead singer Natalie Maines was visibly pregnant with her first child,[15] and was able to rest during the middle section of the show, which featured the trio performing numbers such as Sheryl Crow's "Strong Enough" while sitting on a couch.[12][13]
Critical reaction to the Fly Tour shows was generally positive. The New York Times called it "a slick, good-natured show that seesawed between clinging love songs and declarations of female independence."[14]Rolling Stone 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 got for guitar solos – was "damn near revolutionary".[11]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,[11] while The University News praised it, saying the show "appealed to the eyes with its unique stage and interesting special effects."[12]The Daily Universe's reviewer called the group "the most exciting country-and-western group I have ever seen,"[16] while KAOS2000 magazine said "this trio of hotties know how to put on a show and definitely had control of the big arena stage."[15] 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'.[13]
Broadcasts and recordings
The August shows at Washington, D.C.'s MCI Center were filmed and used as the basis for an NBC network special called, "Dixie Chicks: On the Fly". The special aired November 20, 2000.[17]
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.
^Mason, Dave (November 20, 2000). "Dixie Chicks do the tube". The Daily News. Vol. 146, no. 323. Bowling Green, Kentucky: News Publishing, LLC. p. 3B. Retrieved November 20, 2013.
