The Chicks marked twenty years of Taking the Long Way with sold-out performances at New York’s Beacon Theatre. Their anniversary presentation revisited an album shaped by the backlash that followed Natalie Maines’s criticism of the Iraq war in 2003.
The show combined a full performance of the record with documentary material recalling that period. Maines performed alongside Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer, bringing the group’s vocal harmonies and fiddle-and-banjo foundations into a concert supported by a larger backing band.
The Guardian’s review treated the event as both a musical celebration and a reconsideration of the group’s public history. Its assessment praised the singing and the durability of the material. Those judgements belong to the critic; the anniversary format itself gave the trio room to connect familiar songs with the circumstances in which they were made.
