TORONTO - Do the Dixie Chicks have a sense of humour about the whole Bush comment brou-ha-ha?

You'd better believe it.

The Texas trio took to the stage at the Air Canada Centre last night to the sounds of Hail To The Chief during the first of two sold-out shows in Toronto.

In case you were asleep, Dixie Chicks lead singer Natalie Maines created a firestorm three years ago at a London concert when she questioned President George W. Bush's intentions on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

"Just so you know, we're ashamed that the president is from Texas," Maines said at the time.

Those are words that still haunt Maines.

In fact, the Chicks' arrival in Toronto comes just as their new documentary, Shut Up & Sing, opened locally in theatres on Friday.

The film, co-directed by two-time Oscar winner Barbara Kopple, chronicles the group's three-year career struggle in the face of Maines' infamous dis of Bush.

Country music radio stations in the U.S. stopped playing their records, fans destroyed their albums and protested at their concerts, and Maines even got a serious death threat during a concert in Dallas.

But Shut Up & Sing shows that Toronto was the hottest market when tickets for the Chicks' Accidents and Accusations tour initially went on sale with a second date added immediately. Since then, additional dates were added in Halifax, Winnipeg and Calgary.

Naturally, then, it was a Chicks' lovefest last night as the three women kicked off their concert with Lubbock Or Leave It from their latest album, Taking The Long Way.

But it was the third song of the night, Goodbye Earl, a controversial song about killing a wife-beater named Earl from an earlier album Fly, that sparked the first real sing-along and clap-along of the night.

Maines, banjo player Emily Robison and fiddler Martie Maguire, along with a seven-piece band, easily led the sold-out audience through the spirited song and into the next two, The Long Way Around and a cover of Landslide.

"You might be the best Canadian crowd yet," said Maines during a brief pause in the proceedings. "That's why it's so perfect that we're having a little technical difficulty tonight."

Whatever that was, however, wasn't obvious.

And just in case the Chicks' continued position on Bush hasn't been made abundantly clear, Taking The Long Way contains the defiant first single, Not Ready To Make Nice.

In fact, the latest Dixie Chicks controversy erupted Friday when NBC apparently refused to accept an national ad for Shut Up & Sing although the U.S. network is claiming the whole thing is a film company publicity stunt.

The Chicks play their second sold-out date at the Air Canda Centre tonight.