Toby Keith is a musical razor, effortlessly slicing people down the middle with a persona and catalog of songs so easy to love and hate for a variety of reasons.
The diehards who packed Friday night’s show at Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre, for example, would seem like the types who wouldn’t be caught dead at a hip-hop or punk concert. They cheered during a lengthy pre-show Ford commercial showing their cowboy hero literally battering a group of caricatured musical acts (glam, boy-band pop, hip-hop, etc.) in a staged F-150 competition.
Sure, it was his big sponsor’s pre-show time to strut, and the cartoonish, crass advert reinforced every negative stereotype of pop-country fans. But beyond Keith’s jingoistic lyrics and over-the-top sponsorships there’s a crossover appeal that has made him one of the smartest, most successful touring artists in the nation — and with one of the most loyal, vocal fan bases.
Keith jumped instantly from the end of the Ford commercial into the show, heralded by a burst of glittering silver confetti, red flames and explosions so deafening that the opening song (“Big Dog Daddy”) sounded timid by comparison.
It didn’t take him long, however, to showcase his robust band. Overflowing with horns, fiddle, steel guitar, backup singers and the requisite coordinated moves, the group ably shepherded Keith through a vocal- heavy mix of tunes including “High Maintenance Woman,” “Whiskey Girl,” “I’m Just Talkin’ About Tonight” and many others.
“God Love Her,” the still-hot single from last year’s “That Don’t Make Me a Bad Guy,” gave Keith’s hard-working backup crew a chance to shine, the brass and keyboards adding a depth lacking on several of the other fist-pumping anthems.
Of course, “depth” is relative at a concert where the drum riser is the back half of a Ford truck bed, or where most of the songs involve some form of willful utopian inebriation and misogyny. As many have noted, Keith’s carefully calculated persona speaks to a Jimmy Buffet-style abandon, a relaxed, liquor-fueled lifestyle that hits all the right notes for the work-weary.
Disaffection with the system, in other words, comes in all musical forms — not just the ones approved by geeky, elitist music critics. “Plasma gettin’ bigger, Jesus gettin’ smaller,” Keith belted in the fist-pumping “American Ride.” “Spill a cup of coffee, make a million dollars.”
Now who can’t get behind that?
John Wenzel: 303-954-1642 or jwenzel@denverpost.com
