Posted on 03/11/2005 8:00:21 PM PST by 11th_VA
UNCASVILLE, Conn. - Toby Keith's crafted quite a career in country music and courting controversy.
So it's no surprise to find the country kingpin stirring it up again. But this time it's got nothing to do with what he's singing or what he's saying or even his celebrated old feud with The Dixie Chicks. Instead, it all revolves around his choice for his opening act on his "Big Throwdown Tour," which played to a full house at the Mohegan Sun Arena Friday.
Keith's enlisted "Motor City Madman" and screeching hard rocker Ted Nugent to open the shows on this leg of the tour, and Nugent lived up to every bit of his wildman reputation and then some.
As his fans know, Keith's a self-proclaimed honky tonkin' redneck cowboy, a six-foot-four inch former semipro football player from Oklahoma who mixes songs about patriotism and soldiers and flag waving with songs about women and drinking and smoking pot. He leans right, but he's also been quick to point out he's a registered Democrat who happens to support President Bush and his policies. Keith sells millions of albums and he's also a lot of fun to watch onstage - and Friday proved to be no exception.
On the other hand, Nugent is still playing with a whole lot less than a full deck. At 56, this passionate hunter and resident of Crawford, Texas, is more outrageous than during his "Cat Scratch Fever" heyday nearly 30 years ago. Not only was his music about 20 times louder than Keith's Friday - and that's hardly an exaggeration - he also made Keith look like a candidate for a lunch with the Clintons in comparison to Nugent's own hot-wired, politically charged manifesto. Case in point: Nugent closed his 50-minute opening slot with "Kiss My Ass," a guitar-wailing sledgehammer of a song that lyrically links Saddam Hussein with Ted Kennedy, John F. Kerry, Michael Moore, The Dixie Chicks, Jessie Jackson and a host of others not from Nugent's same school of political thought.
The crowd hooted as a bigger-than-life cardboard effigy of Saddam showed up above the stage toward the end of the song and screeched even louder when the Motor City Madman used one of his old stage tricks by shooting an arrow right into the effigy's chest. "I say we kill 'ze'em all!" howled the Nuge, clutching a gun and a hunting bow, reiterating his "This is my America" theme that he voiced repeatedly during the set.
God Bless America indeed. It was a fitting, completely over-the-top ending to a set that found Nugent taking the stage, waving the American flag and screaming the Pledge of Allegiance.
The audience automatically rose in unison and it was such a bizarre blend between the action on stage and the reaction from the crowd that at times it seemed as if one was watching an old black and white German propaganda film from the early 1940s. Fronting a power trio, "Uncle Ted" ripped through seven songs in all, including "Cat Scratch Fever," "Stranglehold," "Fred Bear," (which was accompanied by a big-screen film of hunters taking down deer) and "Great White Buffalo." He preceded that last song by saying "God bless the Indians, I salute anyone who gets away with not paying taxes," a sentiment that will no doubt get an interesting reaction from the folks at the Mohegan Sun who were paying his salary this night.
Mercifully, Keith's 90 minutes on stage were nowhere near as vitriolic and were instead filled with party anthems and booming country rockers. Backed by a six-piece band, three-piece horn section and a female singer, the Oklahoman spun through songs such as the show-opening "Stays in Mexico," "Who's Your Daddy?," "Whiskey Girl," his new single "Honky Tonk U," and "Should've Been a Cowboy," the latter of which featured a guitar intro lifted from the theme to "Blazing Saddles."
"I Love This Bar," was a major fan fave as were some of his "Bus Songs," which featured Keith playing acoustic guitar with his songwriting partner Scotty Emerick, triggering plenty of laughs, especially on "The Taliban Song" and "Weed With Willie," Keith's saga about getting high with Willie Nelson after smoking "a big fat one that put everybody in a coma."
After closing with "Beer For My Horses," Keith returned to encore with the patriotic "American Soldier" and then brought Nugent back to the stage for a Hendrix-styled take of "The Star Spangled Banner," before the two each played matching red, white and blue guitars for the show-closing "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)," complete with pyrotechnics and red, white and blue confetti filling the arena.
Kevin O'Hare can be reached at kohare@repub.com
I was at that show at Soldier Field, that would have been the one with Skynyrd. correct? Great show.
Wow -- 4,500 LPs -- I have some pretty large stacks of wax, but you have me beat!! Just for the record -- no pun intended -- 98.6 came out in late 1966 -- other songs out then were "Kind Of A Drag" by The Buckinghams; "Nashville Cats" by The Lovin Spoonful; "I'm Losing You" by The Temptations; "Tell It Like It Is" by Aaron Neville; "Good Thing" by Paul Revere and the Raiders; and, a bit more obscure, "It's Now Winter's Day" by Tommy Roe. Don't ask why I remember that particular period so vividly -- I couldn't tell you what I had for lunch today!! But you're right, summers in the 60s seem pretty glorious from here, don't they?
And thanks all for the birthday wishes.
As for Nuge, I agree..."Journey To The Center Of The Mind"/Amboy Dukes belongs in the R&R Hall of Fame...
Agree that "Journey To The Center Of The Mind" was a great one -- summer of 68 -- when else? Same time as "Pictures Of Matchstick Men" by Status Quo. Wonderful, melting, psychedelic guitar riffs. Yet another example of those glorious 60s summers!! And so much insanity was taking place politically.
Works for me.
OTOH sadam has lost weight since he's been a guest of the US military, and Michael "Three Cheeseburger" Moore should get his own zip code.
Best concert I ever saw in my life was Terrible Ted. Legend Valley, 25 years ago.
Happy Birthday!!
Well. There it is. I think the Nuge makes a heck of a lot of sense and that really drives the Church ladies batty. Long live rock!
I had the pleasure of seeing Ted several times during his solo heyday in the 1970's but truly the loudest concert I ever went to, and still feel the after effects to this day, was at the 1979 California World Music Festival, which lasted two days and featured the best 70's rock bands playing over what was, for the then, the largest sound system ever assembled (at the LA Coliseum). When Ted peaked it was so loud the system actually distorted.
The original "Kiss My Ass" was about x42 and reno. I had a tape of it from a Rockline special that was run on Memorial Day back around 1993/94 but it was stolen in the tape player.
Crawford ping.
Yes, that was the one. When Ted got on stage it was late in the afternoon. Everyone had brought plastic milk bottles for water, since it was so hot. An when Ted started to play, Thousands of the bottles went up in the air - for the next 20 minutes it looked like millions of ping pong balls in the stadium were popping up and down. Craziest thing I've ever seen.
Is Mojo Nixon a conservative?
I love the Reverend! Not too many people around here have heard of him, but he comes once in a while.
Didn't see that one, but I used to see Ted & the Dukes at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit in the late 60s. Biggest treat was hearing him plug in behind closed curtains -- he'd crank the Byrd through that big stack of Fenders and deliver some of the greatest Godzilla roars you ever heard. And that hummingbird vibrato with those long-sustained, sweetly-distorted notes turning into feeback on-demand. My favorite sounds on earth at the time...
A good show I remember was the Agora, Columbus, Ohio, about 1970. The Amboy Dukes with Glass Harp, featuring a young Phil Keaggy, as the opening act. Good stuff!
PS -- yeah, my hearing's just fine. Why do you ask? ;^)
I've been a Nuge fan since I was a little kid. But my admiration for him went up still further after reading that comment.
WHAT!? No "Stormtrooper" {;^)
Mojo Nixon is more of a libertarian than a conservative. But he's no liberal. He can be heard on the "Outlaw Country" station on Sirius. He DJ's the afternoon shift.
I got you both beat. I was thinking "Keith" from the Partridge Family when I first saw this thread. Started humming "Doesn't Somebody Want To Be Wanted." I'm sick, sick, sick.
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