THE DIXIE CHICKS
Recorded live at the Center, Chicago, Illinois
November 12, 2000

Recorded from the audience by Roy Martin using a Sony MZ-R30 MiniDisc Walkman with
a set of Sound Professionals Premium Binaural microphones (with battery box, bass
roll-off settings unknown).

Although transferred to WAV (1st Gen analog) and traded in 2000-2001, this is a "newly
rediscovered" transfer that's digital all the way. Playback of the original MiniDiscs
on a Sony MDS-JE510 deck to my computer's SoundBlaster Z-Series soundcard via fibre optic
(TOSlink) cable as a 16-bit/44.1kHz WAV file in real time, then a 5db volume boost -
all using Audacity. The large WAV was split into proper tracks using CD Wave Editor.
The WAVs encoded to FLAC (Level 8) with all appropriate checksum files created using
Trader's Little Helper.

Although the low end was boomy (like the amplification in all arena concerts) and I was
right behind a group of die-hard Chicks fans, I felt no further changes to the recording
were neccessary. Every yodel and whoop from the audience remains. They paid for their
tickets like I did and spontaneous audience responses are part of the uniquity of live
concerts. No EQing, so salt 'n pepper to taste.

Total time: 1 hour 44 minutes 15 seconds

01 Lenny Kravitz' Fly Away (excerpt ***)
02 Ready To Run
03 There's Your Trouble
04 Hello Mr. Heartache
05 Loving Arms
06 Without You
07 If I Fall, You're Going Down With Me
08 I Can Love You Better > banter
09 Truth No. 2
10 You Were Mine
11 Give It Up Or Let Me Go
12 baby banter... [edit due to MiniDisc swap]
13 Let Him Fly
14 Heartbreak Town
15 Strong Enough
16 Brilliancy
17 Am I The Only One (Who's Ever Felt This Way)
18 Cold Day In July
19 Some Days You Gotta Dance
20 Cowboy Take Me Away
21 Sin Wagon
22 Goodbye Earl
23 Wide Open Spaces

Although later to be proved inauthentic and phony, I thought The Dixie Chicks offered what
I would consider the classic sixties Nashville countrypolitan sound during this period.
"Hello Mr. Heartache" could've been a Patsy Cline song penned by Hank Cochran. "Loving
Arms" is a classic, known perhaps most famously as the Kris Kristofferson & Rita Coolidge
duet or by being one of Elvis' best yet least-known self-regret songs recorded by Presley
in the early 70s. This was the first debut tour of the Dixie Chicks as headliners, and
incredibly successful being the 6th highest-grossing tour of the year 2000. Although not
a fan of them nor of contemporary country (I bought tickets for my wife's enjoyment), I was
impressed with their performance & presentation. "Goodbye Earl" was performed with the three
ladies in three opposing corners of the arena, quite a gimmick made possible by the newest
in-ear monitoring technologies. The lead singer was very preggers but capable of performing
for nearly two hours and the others were surprisingly good musicians. Rather unfortunate that
they were soon to suffer self-inflicted career suicide the likes of which hadn't occurred in
the country music business since the days of Jerry Lee Lewis. The paralells are interesting
as both implosions occurred while touring Britain. Jerry Lee started out mainstream and exited
his career crisis as a country act while the ladies began as a country act and ended up trying
to be mainstream (no more Dixie for these Chicks).


*** The small excerpt of the Lenny Kravitz song "Fly Away" is considered Fair Use under
Section 107 of the Copyright Law Of The United States due to:
(a) the Dixie Chicks were licensees authorized to reproduce the song publicly
by means of digital audio transmission during the introduction of their concerts
by the owner(s) of the copyright and,
(b) its intended use to start the Dixie Chicks' concerts was meant to be parodical
in nature as this was the "Fly Tour" in support of their successful album release
entitled "Fly" and,
(c) this recording was created solely for non-profit, educational, research and/or
scholarship purposes and,
(d) the incomplete excerpt included in this amateur-quality sound reproduction does
not, in any way, provide any reasonable ability to compete with the official release
under any commercial marketplace circumstances.