The Chicks’ 2023 New Zealand tour features Halloween challenge to Kiwi fans

NZ Herald

23 Jul, 2023 09:15 PM3 mins to read

The Chicks, America's biggest-selling female band of all time, are touring New Zealand in October.

The Chicks - the artists formerly known as the Dixie Chicks - have announced their return to New Zealand, six years after their last tour here.

Speaking to Toni Street, Jason Reeves and Sam Wallace on Kiwi radio station Coast, America’s biggest-selling US band of all time say they’re looking forward to being back in Aotearoa at the end of October - just in time for Halloween.

Playing in Auckland on Saturday, October 28, and in Christchurch on Monday 30 and Tuesday 31, the trio of Natalie Maines and sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer tell the radio hosts they’d like to put forward a Halloween challenge to their Kiwi fans.

“Come as your favourite Chick. Let’s see some Chick costumes. I’m introducing a challenge, let’s do this,” Maines says.

The 13-time Grammy Award-winning troupe say they’ll also be looking forward to some special Kiwi fare like they experienced during their last visit to New Zealand six years ago.

Emily Straya, Natalie Maines and Martie Maguire of The Chicks.

“We went to this amazing property and they did one of those underground smoking BBQ things,” they tell the Coast hosts who surmise they’re referring to a hāngī.

“It was amazing and they taught us how to layer everything and then they cover it over.”

The Chicks also have something in common with host Wallace: Straya and Maguire are parents to twins too.

Asked how they managed parenting alongside raising multiples, Maguire says their tour buses were fully equipped.

“Natalie already had her son. Emily had her son, and so we already had the buses equipped with the the cribs and the toys and the road cases and nannies and little potties everywhere - for the ones that were potty training. It’s a unique situation being all mums at the same time and getting to to do our career with our kids.”

While their children are now in their late teens, The Chicks’ tour buses have seen the baby gear replaced in part with wine stocks, including their own brand, Gaslighter Wine, named after their 2020 album Gaslighter.

With an opening act from American singer-songwriter Elle King, songs from The Chicks latest album are expected to feature on their set list as well as the hope that a track, Silent House, which Kiwi singer-songwriter Neil Finn worked on, might also be performed.

Reviews from their recent European and UK tour included a four-star review by The Guardian describing the trio’s “barn-burning virtuosity and cut-glass vocals” and “grit, humour and outlandish musicianship”, while a review of their month-long residency at Las Vegas Planet Hollywood noted: “The Chicks were energised and engaged … Vocally, Maines was flawless”.