Review: Toby Keith swaggers through kick-butt show at Comcast
BY CATHERINE SERAPHIN FOR THE SUN CHRONICLE
Monday, July 27, 2009 2:25 PM EDT
Toby Keith (AP file photo)
MANSFIELD - Whether it was the cowboy hats or the heat, you would have thought you were in Texas at the Comcast Center on Sunday night.
Toby Keith strummed his guitar and serenaded the crowd during a starry show full of pyrotechnics, confetti and cowboy tunes.
The show certainly wouldn't appeal to everyone in Massachusetts, but whether you were a country music lover or a newcomer to the genre, it was a show worth seeing and hearing.
It was hard to miss that the concert was sponsored by Ford F-Series. The drummer was on a mock-truck bed with working brake lights and a "Big Dog" license plate, and the opening 10-minute ad for Ford would make even a 12-year-old teeny bopper want to take advantage of the towing capability and four-wheel drive.
The show may have been a little risque for those teeny boppers, though, especially during the song "Whiskey Girl," since animated bottles of alcohol were shown among enough naked silhouettes to be considered a soft-core porn flick.
But Keith and his opening act, Trace Adkins, did what they do best, and gave a performance that was a smorgasbord for the senses. Also, Keith put more passion into his songs than the cliche love-songs he made fun of.
The show opened in grand fashion, with a movie screen falling to the ground and revealing a stage ready with brass band players, shining guitars and enough fireworks and confetti to knock the roof off.
He sang some favorites, including "I Love This Bar," "Who's Your Daddy," and "Get Drunk and Be Somebody," and let the audience to scream some verses as they were caught on camera deafening the person next to them.
Keith needed to be a little more selfish when it came to the performance, though. It was hard to keep the focus on him with all the animations going on in the background. But that big Southern smile of his would drag anyone's attention right back to the main man on stage.
The encore featured Keith playing his American-flag guitar alongside Adkins while dedicating a song to some American soldiers present.
Between Keith's compliments to the ladies and the uplifting subject matter of the songs, anyone, even those non-country city folk, could walk away from the performance with a smile as big as Keith's, and maybe a little confetti in their hair.
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