The Chicks spent election night doing exactly what their critics have spent 23 years telling them not to do. Taking the stage at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Tuesday, November 3, Natalie Maines, Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer held up red hand fans emblazoned with a two-word, four-letter message for Donald Trump, according to The Daily Beast, as results came in showing Democrats taking control of both chambers of Congress.
“Hello, Los Angeles! Welcome to our blunami night,” Maines told the crowd. “Texas is blue, the Senate is blue, the House is blue. This was gonna be a very different night if that wasn’t the case.”
The moment was filmed by fans and spread quickly online, picked up by The Independent in its round-up of celebrity reactions to the midterms, alongside the Daily Mail and the Irish Star. For a band from Dallas, the Texas result was clearly the one that mattered most. The Daily Beast reports that Democrat James Talarico won the state’s Senate seat over Republican Ken Paxton. Accounts of how long Texas had gone without a Democrat in the Senate differ: The Daily Beast says more than 30 years, while The Independent’s report says nearly 40.
A fight that started weeks earlier
Tuesday’s show did not come out of nowhere. The Chicks are on the road with their Taking the Long Way 20th anniversary tour, celebrating the 2006 album they made in the wake of the backlash that nearly ended their career, and politics has been part of the set throughout.
At the Beacon Theatre in New York last month, Maines revisited the remark that started it all. In 2003, on the eve of the Iraq War, she told a London audience the band was ashamed that President George W. Bush was from Texas. In New York, she joked that she would now give Bush “a big wet kiss” — “’cause now we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from the United States,” as reported by TheWrap.
The White House did not let it pass. A spokesperson told Fox News Digital that Maines was a “despicable nobody” suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” and added an insult about the size of her brain, according to TheWrap’s account of the statement, which was published October 14. No spokesperson was named. TheWrap said Maines’ representative did not respond to a request for comment, and the singer’s on-stage answer was that the band would “never” submit to the “shut up and sing” crowd.
The band also made its allegiances plain before the vote. At a sold-out show in San Antonio on October 17, The Chicks brought Talarico on stage and endorsed him, The Daily Beast reports. Election night in Los Angeles was, in effect, the band taking a victory lap for a candidate they had campaigned for in person.
The ghost of 2003
For anyone who remembers the original controversy, the symmetry is hard to miss. Maines’ 2003 comment led to the group being pulled from country radio, public CD-smashing protests, boycotts and death threats serious enough to involve the FBI, TheWrap notes. Their 2006 album Taking the Long Way and its single “Not Ready to Make Nice” were the band’s answer, and the record swept the Grammys the following year, including Album of the Year.
Twenty years later, the band is touring that album, and the target of their criticism has changed from one Republican president to another. What has not changed is the reaction: fan responses to the New York remarks were mixed, according to TheWrap, a split that has followed the band since 2003.
A bumpy week in Los Angeles
The election-night show came at the end of a difficult few days for the trio in Los Angeles. On Monday, November 2, the band postponed its scheduled Dolby Theatre concert due to illness, announcing it on Instagram roughly an hour before doors were set to open, according to American Songwriter. “The Chicks’ performance tonight Monday, November 2 at Dolby Theatre has been rescheduled due to illness,” the statement read, adding that all tickets would be honored for the new date of Wednesday, November 4. The band did not say who was unwell.
The late change has not gone down well with every ticket holder. Parade reports that fans who bought through resale and ticketing platforms say they have been refused refunds because the show was rescheduled rather than canceled, with some urging the band to cancel outright so they can get their money back. One buyer said they had driven four hours to the venue. Parade also noted resale prices for the rescheduled date falling as low as $27 a ticket.
What happens next
The rescheduled concert is set for Wednesday night at the Dolby Theatre, as the band wraps up the Taking the Long Way anniversary run in Los Angeles. After election night, few would bet on Maines keeping her thoughts to herself on stage.
Whether the White House responds again remains to be seen. The October exchange showed that the administration is willing to engage directly with the band, and Tuesday’s display was a far more pointed provocation than a joke about George W. Bush. For The Chicks, though, this is familiar ground. They lost their place on country radio for speaking out once, built a second career on refusing to apologize for it, and two decades on they are still not ready to make nice.
