Who's to Blame for Dixie Chicks cancellation?

[Catherine Vincent]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4116099.html

Aug. 15, 2006, 12:29PM
Radio, promoter each blames other for cut in Chicks tour


By MICHAEL D. CLARK and TARA DOOLEY
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

More than 20,000 Dixie Chicks fans in Houston bought the band's latest album, the 1.5 million-selling Taking the Long Way.

That much is clear, along with the fact that the Dixie Chicks' Houston concert date was canceled.

The promoter blames the radio stations.

Initial reports cited slow ticket sales. But tickets for the Toyota Center show never went on sale.

The country radio stations credit their listeners with the cancellation and blame the Chicks for a bad attitude.

The fans will have to book trips to Dallas or Austin.

Louis Messina, president of the Messina Group, the Houston-based concert promoter that booked the Dixie Chicks' Accidents and Accusations Tour says Houston's country radio stations refused advertising dollars to promote the show.

Radio is still upset with the band's loose-lipped members — singer Natalie Maines, fiddler Martie Maguire and banjoist Emily Robison — who publicly requested a divorce from the country format earlier this year.

-------------

20,000 cds were sold in Houston of the Dixie Chicks new album but their scheduled concert there was cancelled? The Dixie Chicks fans in Houston should protest about this.

[ceile]

1. What has happened to my hometown?

This is not the Houston I grew up in. WHere are the fans?!

[texastoast]

2. I'm right here and VERY disappointed

I saw their last show and due to the idiocy of two right-wingers who decided not to show up for the concert, I got absolutely perfect front-row seats and was able to say "I love you" to the Chicks. Needless to say, I was hoping to get great seats again in the new Toyota Center.

I guess I'm going to have to try to eBay a seat or two in Austin. I would rather see them anyway in a blue town. And Austin is such a cool place.