Country With Conviction in Land of Dixie

For several reasons, starting with the female trio’s name, it is easy to underestimate the Dixie Chicks.

They are bestsellers in a field where quality has been scarce in recent years, especially near the top of the charts, where the Chicks have roosted long enough to sell more than 10 million albums in three years.

Natalie Maines, Emily Robison and Martie Seidel are also photogenic enough to make you suspicious that they were put together by a shrewd manager who noticed Shania Twain’s pin-up pop appeal and thought he could come up with Twain Times Three.

But the Chicks have been chipping away at that skepticism for some time now, even stealing the show last year at Lilith Fair’s Rose Bowl stop--and their first arena headline tour should fully establish their credibility.

On Saturday, in the first of two sold-out concerts at the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim, the trio showed why it is the freshest thing in mainstream country music since the arrival a decade ago of Garth Brooks.

Besides their talent, which is broad enough to include songwriting, the Chicks bring a liberating, feminist stance to their music, which is especially significant in a field that has long been rooted in macho sensibilities.

That “Go Girls” attitude was in evidence throughout the group’s Pond show, where a full house greeted the women with the kind of roaring enthusiasm that suggests the Chicks have struck a strong sociological chord with their fans.

The trio’s songs are filled with messages about self-affirmation and about going into relationships with your eyes open--as well as getting out of them if they’re unsound.

“When the train rolls by/I’m gonna be ready this time,” Maines sang in “Ready to Run,” a vow not to be pressured into situations, including marriage--and Maines sang it Saturday with such exuberance that she ended up twisting and twirling around the stage with the frenzy of rock’s irrepressible

Bjork.

Later, Maines delivered the same message about relationships more personally. Introducing “Cowboy Take Me Away,” she advised her fans never to “accept less than a fairy tale.”

Then, in the encore, the Chicks offered a raucous version of “Goodbye Earl,” the group’s controversial hit single that shows what can happen when men don’t treat their women right.

The impressive thing about the Chicks is that they’ve been able to make commercial inroads into the pop field without compromising their country music sensibilities. Most of the songs are seasoned with plentiful touches of Seidel’s fiddle and Robison’s banjo or dobro.

The material began to run thin near the end of the nearly two-hour show--and the Chicks might consider another “tribute,” a la the one they did to Bonnie Raitt when they played a knockout rendition of Raitt’s fireball “Get It Up or Let Me Go.”

The group was joined on two numbers by Sheryl Crow, a surprise guest for the evening, and on one number by pop-rock singer-songwriter Patty Griffin, who is the opening act on several tour dates and who wrote “Let Him Fly,” one of the most engaging numbers on the group’s “Fly” album.

Maines, Seidel and Robison, who work extremely well together on stage, personalized the evening by showing some childhood photos on video screens--playfully wincing at every awkward period of adolescence and blushing at every sweet or tender one.

The segment was designed to entertain the audience, while the crew prepared the stage for an acoustic segment in the middle of the concert. But it worked especially well because the Chicks’ music--from honky-tonk workouts such as “Hello Mr. Heartache” to the torch-like “Without You”--feels so authentic that it, too, seems as personal as the photographs.

Go girls, indeed.

* Dixie Chicks and Patty Griffin play tonight at the Arrowhead Pond, 2695 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim, 7:30 p.m. Sold out. (714) 704-2500.