[1] Since the sudden jump in the group's success in 1998, they had played as a supporting act for Tim McGraw and as part of the George Strait Country Music Festival and Lilith Fair, seeking to expose themselves to diverse audiences in building a fan base.

[2] The live reputation the group developed for their instrumental prowess and performance strengths[4] led to them embarking upon an ambitious, high-profile, large-venue tour of their own.

[3] Begun at the start of June 2000 with five dates in Canada, and with occasional two-week breaks in between legs, the tour was originally scheduled to end in September.

[3] Chicks management did this in order to get more consistent messaging in marketing and promotion, which itself was aided by an over $3 million national advertising campaign.

[11] The themes of the show veered between love songs and declarations of female independence, with the opener "Ready to Run" and the climactic "Goodbye Earl" both exemplifying the latter.

[14] Other stage effects included a night full of stars with a setting moon for "Cowboy Take Me Away", and bubbles representing snow falling from the rafters for "Cold Day in July".

[11] By the later stages of the tour, lead singer Natalie Maines was visibly pregnant with her first child,[15] and was able to rest during the middle section of the show, which featured the trio performing numbers such as Sheryl Crow's "Strong Enough" while sitting on a couch.

"[14] Rolling Stone said that while the group "can pop and rock with conviction", at other times the show represented "stone-cold, hard-core honky tonk at its best", and that the youthful audience's roars of approval for the sisters' instrumental virtuosity – which it compared to those Eddie Van Halen got for guitar solos – was "damn near revolutionary".

[13] The August shows at Washington, D.C.'s MCI Center were filmed and used as the basis for an NBC network special called, "Dixie Chicks: On the Fly".