Iowa connections: Toby Keith

CEDAR RAPIDS — Toby Keith, who died Monday at age 62, has performed more than a dozen times in this area, including concerts in Cedar Rapids, The Great Jones County Fair in Monticello, the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, the Muscatine County Fair in West Liberty, Ames, Steamboat Days in Burlington and Moline, Ill. He also gave the first concert at Coralville’s Xtream Arena on Oct. 14, 2021.

In her review from his Feb. 28, 2003, concert at the then-U. S. Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids, Diana Nollen wrote:

Urban cowboy Toby Keith brought country to town and fans to their feet Friday night at the U.S. Cellular Center.

The audience of 6,205 filled nearly every seat in front of the massive stage, and even some behind the scenes. Keith's a big guy with a supersized show built around his own brand of rocky tonk swings, ballads and rap. Yep, he raps his way through "Wanna Talk About Me," and it works.

He has more bells and whistles than most country crooners. His set is a multilevel, urban streetscape sporting a hydraulic lift and a culvert, plus a long ramp bridging the various levels. Videos play on supersized screens. Fog cascades over the front of the stage on "You Shouldn't Kiss Me Like This." And fireworks and confetti cannons pack a wallop during his controversial anthem, "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American).“