Toby Keith brings Ford trucks, red Solo Cups to Phoenix

For those who haven't been paying close attention to Toby Keith, the overall impression we still carry around of him is that of jingoism unchained. We remember the promise of putting the "boot in your ass / It's the American way" to our 911 attackers in "Courtesy of the Red White and Blue" but not the elegy to his dad who had recently died in the same song. We remember his feud with the Dixie Chicks but forget that he voted for Obama and was a frequent guest on "The Colbert Report." We hear "Both ends of the ozone burnin' / Funny how the world keeps turnin'" in "American Ride" and think Keith is a climate change denier instead of hearing it as a laundry list of what's wrong with this country that anyone can gripe about.

Maybe that's why one of his new songs spells out the world view that it doesn't matter if we're Democrat or Republican or if we wear a baseball cap or a turban: We're just all "Drunk Americans." Cue fireworks!

And because selling stuff is also the American way, we will begin our Toby Keith concert review at Ak-Chin Pavilion Sunday in just a moment. But first a word from our tour sponsor, Ford, partners with Toby Keith since 2002 and the makers of the new F-150 and the Super Duty pickups.

Right after blasting Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar of Me" to test the house woofers but before Keith appeared in the flesh, we got a 10-minute truck commercial where Keith comes on like problem solver Winston Wolf in "Pulp Fiction," rescuing guys from their disastrous pickup lines on the ladies (This summer tour is called "Good Times & Pick-Up Lines," after all.) In this Supersized Super Bowl spot, Keith continuously achieves the impossible; first by accommodating gate crashers with a pool party that would break the bank of lesser country stars. Then he wrestles a wild bear, impersonates Daft Punk and works in some extra shilling for red Solo Cups and Tonka toy trucks. But most incredulous of all, he gets concert goers to stand 10 minutes for a Ford commercial instead of rushing to the bathroom.

PHOTOS: TOBY KEITH IN CONCERT IN PHOENIX

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Insuring that you 're getting a different Toby Keith experience than previous tours, Keith had a three-piece horn section, which when it worked, like on the Bobby Keys-styled sax solo on the concert opener "Haven't Had a Drink All Day" or the New Orleans/Beale Street blowout featured on "Who's Your Daddy," was a welcome addition. But more often than not, on songs like "Shoulda Been A Cowboy" and "Beer for My Horses" (featuring a video duet with Willie Nelson), the effect was that everything sounds too showbiz-y busy, like the "Entertainment Tonight" theme instead of the gutbucket country these anthems are supposed to invoke.

More Ford visuals were inserted in the video feeds of "Made in America," "American Ride, "Who's Your Daddy" and, most head-scratchingly, "Beers Ago," where the mixing of nostalgia and Ford trucks felt ill-advised, as did the incessant intrusive appearances of red Solo cups. There's a cup holder right on Keith's mike stand, not to mention how anyone with a beverage in all of the videos has had their drink transferred into the red Solo cup before consumption (Even the lyrics of "Whiskey Girl" had sponsor-amended lyrics). All this shilling started to have the cumulative effect of making you feel un-American and a traitor to Toby Keith if you were drinking directly out of a Coors can and driving home in a Hyundai Elantra. Damn you Toby Keith! Who died and made you Don Draper?

Can we also all agree that "Red Solo Cup"is the stupidest song Keith has ever committed to polycarbonate?Maybe it was the dancing-cups video that made it feel like an intermission reel or the horns aping the melody that has turned this song from an agreeable novelty song to a major annoyance?

But the show still had its moments of transcendence, mostly when the video feed just featured the band onstage and especially in the middle of the set, where Keith asked the audience "How many were listening to country in 1995, '96?" and unearthed old hits that have long fallen off the setlist like "Who's that Man," an almost Springsteen-like parable about a guy whose family has answered the "Who's Your Daddy" queries with another man. He also dug up "Dream Walkin'" and "You Shouldn't Kiss Me Like This." The man has had 20 Billboard Country No. 1's and nearly as many Top Five hits so it's a wonder how much people mind the amount of hits he must omit out of every show.

Another highlight was when he previewed his new single "35 MPH Town" which again felt Springsteen-esque in its narrative about kids who were never disciplined coming home to roost in an unsafe town. I much prefer this Keith to the guy who spews out agreeable jokey songs like "I Wanna Talk About Me" where he's almost rapping in the verses. But it takes two sides to make a coin and you can tell which side is heads when you hear the roars for "How Do You Like Me Now" over "Hope on the Rocks," which he dedicated to bartenders everywhere. Don't worry, he also saluted firefighters, police, the sheriff's office and of course the men and women who serve in our military and navy. Both times with his red Solo cup aloft.

That point was driven home during the encore where sandwiched between "American Soldier" and "Courtesy," Keith, with the help of Project Rebuild and The Military Warrior Support Foundation, awarded a fully renovated, mortgage-free home to an Iraq war hero who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue and an American who doesn't seem as angry as everyone still thinks he is.

Toby Keith set list

I Haven't Had a Drink All Day

American Ride

Made in America

Beers Ago

I Wanna Talk About Me

Whiskey Girl

Hope on the Rocks

God Love Her

Beer for My Horses (with Willie Nelson on video)

Who's That Man

Dream Walkin'

You Shouldn't Kiss Me Like This

Who's Your Daddy?

35 MPH Town

Drunk Americans

Red Solo Cup

As Good as I Once Was

I Love This Bar

Should've Been a Cowboy

How Do You Like Me Now?

A Little Less Talk and a Lot More Action

Encore:

American Soldier

Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)