Toby Keith — a simple Oklahoma boy who’s become one of the kings of country — did a real-life “Prince and the Pauper” at Irving Plaza Thursday.
Without any advertising, or star hoopla or even mention of his own powerful name (30 million albums sold) on the club marquee, he took the stage as the singer fronting an unknown country bar band slyly named Incognito Bandito.
Unknown? Yes. Amateur? Not at all. Keith and his quintet of ace Nashville session men ripped the roof off Irving Plaza like a powerhouse band.
If you’re wondering why he did it, the answer is more about love than money. The tickets were just 25 bucks, and since there was zero promotion, the house was far from sold out. Plus, there wasn’t a new album to promote.
New York City slickers might yawn at this twanger coming to Gotham and playing a tiny club date, but to put this in perspective, Keith has topped the country singles chart every year since his debut album in 1993, and landed the No. 1 slot with every album he’s released since 2001. He was also the third-highest-grossing musician in the USA last year, knocking down $45 million.
His next date? Tonight at the PNC Arts Center, which holds up to 10,000.
But at the club-size Irving Plaza, Keith wanted to get back to his roots.
In a trucker cap, worn jeans and a brown open-collar shirt, the big, bearded Southener drawled at his fanatical audience, “We just wanted to do this, and we thought if anybody showed up, great, and if they didn’t, f – – – ’em.” It’s the same no-nonsense attitude you heard in his biggest, most controversial hit, “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American),” his flag-waving, don’t-tread-on-me answer to the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
He didn’t play that song at this show because he wasn’t Toby Keith — he was just a guy in Incognito Bandito, the leader of what he tagged a “blues-infected bunch of drunks.”
That may be so, but considering he said they just rehearsed once for this show, they were magnificent, whether doing country jazz such as “The Nightlife,” a badass blues jam on Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine,” or Terry Fell’s ’50s roadhouse classic “Truck Driving Man.” If the show faltered, it was in a weird funk ‘n’ roll version of “Harper Valley PTA.”
Otherwise, Keith and his Incognito Banditos were easy to like and had surprising depth for a bunch of blues-infected drunks.