The thing about Toby Keith is that he’s so much more than the handsome country music star who sang the uber-catchy song that became a crossover hit, viral music video and backyard barbecue catch phrase.

Many among the 6,802 at Keith’s “Country Comes To Town Tour” Grandstand concert Sept. 2 at the Great Allentown Fair raised plastic cups of beer and sang along to “Red Solo Cup” (released in 2012), one of the catchiest ditties since Chuck Berry’s “My Ding-a-Ling” (1972, his first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit).

“Red Solo Cup,” which is about Solo Cup Company’s red plastic cup popular at parties, has the ethos of Garth Brooks’ “Friends In Low Places” (1980, a No. 1 country hit) by conveying a mood, a time and a place that most anyone can relate to. Why didn’t somebody think of this before? Not unlike Outkast’s “Hey Ya! (Shake It Like a Polaroid)” (2003, a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1), Keith knew a hit when he heard it.

The seemingly good-natured Keith is not above having some fun with the song at his own and possibly his fans’ expense when he introduced it. “This is an adult nursery rhyme. Why it was a hit, I don’t know,” he said from the stage prior to the simple chord progression and beat: “De, de, dee, de ... Deet.”

You cannot not stop singing “Red Solo Cup” once you’ve heard it, especially when amplified at Springsteen concert volume on the Fair’s Grandstand stage with Keith’s Easy Money Band pounding it out (drummer Dave McAfee, pound for pound, looked and sounded like he was competing in a tractor-pull contest, and winning).

As Keith related, his record label folks discouraged him from recording “Red Solo Cup,” which climbed the charts after it was released while he was in absentia on a European tour. It’s a novelty song, but Keith is no novelty. He’s got a Ford Super Duty F-250 pickup truckload of hits.

That’s another thing about Toby Keith: He’ll be the first to tell you about cranking out hit after hit for 25 years, album after album nearly every year and, dang if the Oklahoma native (born Toby Keith Covel) isn’t proud of his records’ record (He’s said to be the third most wealthy country singer at more than $300 million with Shania Twain at No. 2 and Dolly Parton at No. 1). On anyone else, it would be bragging. However, Toby Keith wears it well. He deserves every hit and every kudo. “Ya betcha,” as he puts it.

Toby Keith is brilliantly simple. And that makes him simply brilliant.

His effortless charm, somewhere between the brashness of Ted Nugent (“He got a little Covid, so we’re going to do a tribute to him,” Keith said before launching into (Well, his lead guitarist Rich Eckhardt actually did the guitar-shredding launching.) “Stranglehold,” segueing from “A Little Less Talk And A Lot More Action,” and the statuesque Johnny Cash (whose voice Keith’s somewhat resounds like), carries Keith through what in lesser hands, mouth and brain would be awkward.

Instead, Toby Keith never misses a beat. He strode the wide Grandstand stage. He spoke frequently to the audience. Under a battered straw cowboy hat, shirt tail out and alternately strumming an acoustic guitar or clutching a microphone, the 6 ft., 3 in. Keith sang with conviction, smooth delivery and a voice that rang out to the Grandstand’s uppermost seats. His apparent steadfastness (he and wife, Tricia ne Lucus, have been married for 37 years, with three children, Shelley, adopted by Keith; Krystal, Stelen, and four grandchildren) is evident.

The crowd was with Keith, a former Democrat who is a registered Independent, all the way, from waving American flags for the opening “Made In America,” when he took the stage at 9:20 p.m., followed by “God Love Her” (with nice pedal steel by Bruce Bouton), “American Ride” (with great back-up vocals by Mica Roberts and a loud crowd sing-along) and “I Wanna Talk About Me” (2001, a country rap song) to the encore with chants of “USA, USA” that brought him back on stage to conclude the concert at 10:59 p.m. with “American Soldier” and “Courtesy Of The Red White & Blue (The Angry American”) (2001, written in part in response to 9/11). Throughout, Keith was unapologetic and proud.

“Allentown, you’ve been a great audience,” Keith said at the encore’s conclusion, adding, “Don’t ever apologize for being a patriot,” to cheers and applause.

In 20 songs, many of them hits (Keith has had 20 No. 1 hits and 21 Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart), including his first hit, “Should’ve Been A Cowboy” (1993), one of the concert’s most evocative renditions; “How Do You Like Me Now?’; “As Good As I Once Was,” and his anthem, “Beer For My Horses” (for which a videotaped Willie Nelson sang a duet on the huge center-stage screen), Toby Keith laid claim to one of country music’s top draws with a top-drawer concert. It was a great way to open the 169th year of the Great Allentown Fair (which shut down for its Sept. 1 opening because of Hurricane Ida).

“I want to salute all the first-responders who put up with all this crap for the last year. Let’s salute the blue. Let’s salute the greatest military in the world,” Keith said before doing “Beer For My Horses,” with the lyrics, “Whiskey for my men, beer for my horses.”

A hurricane and Covid (which canceled the 2020 edition) can’t keep a good Allentown Fair down.

Nor can they keep Toby Keith down.

Toby Keith is a good old boy whose world of song is typified by adult beverages (“Whiskey Girl,” with a brass trio of trombone, trumpet and saxophone by three guys who looked like they were ready to take the field at the “Friday Night Lights” high school football game) and “I Love This Bar” (which spawned a restaurant chain).

Keith is so much more than “Red Solo Cup” and all that, as heard and seen on “Old School” (first single from his new album, “Peso In My Pocket,” set for Oct. 15 release) with projected images of Keith from little on up in Moore, Okla., where he was mostly raised); “You Shouldn’t Kiss Me Like This,” and “Don’t Let The Old Man In” (written for and heard on the soundtrack of “The Mule,” 2018, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, with clips from the film shown on the big screen). The stage was flanked by two other video screens.

“He’s 91. He’s still out there,” said Keith of Eastwood, who directs and stars in his latest film, “Cry Macho” (set for Sept. 17 release).

Keith, who, at age 60, showed an obvious measure of admiration for legendary film-maker Eastwood no doubt wants to continue bringing his raucous brand of country to towns across America and the world. His “Country Comes To Town” tour, in addition to the Great Allentown Fair, included the Illinois State Fair, Aug. 15, and continues into 2022.

“We’re going to keep doin’ it as long as they let us do it,” Keith said to a roar of approval early on in the concert.

Keith’s first Allentown Fair performance was opening for Brooks & Dunn in 2001. Keith headlined at the Fair’s Grandstand in 2002, 2008 and 2013.

Rick Frederick, his wife Valerie, and their son Ryan, were attending their seventh or eighth Toby Keith concert. Rick Frederick retired in 2014 as an East Penn School District teacher. “I like his songs and his patriotism,” Valerie Frederick said of Toby Keith.

As the crowd filed out and the set was torn down and the tour buses idled behind the Grandstand stage in Allentown, Toby Keith was probably already setting his sights on bringing country to the next town.