CALGARY - To say Toby Keith successfully stormed the Saddledome last night is an understatement.

First lulling the crowd into a daze with a comedic pre-concert video that was mostly a giant Ford commercial and then making them jump with a banging burst of pyrotechnics that took him into the hit She's a Hottie, he owned the fairly full 'Dome right from the start.

Given some of Keith's "America, love it or have your butt kicked by it" rhetoric, not to mention the presence of more lyrical cheese than the Superstore dairy aisle (the first is song a prime example), and it's easy to lump him into the same category as the country schlock that has come to the 'Dome recently like, say, Sugarland.

But if you looked into tunes such as I Wanna Talk About Me, Honkytonk U, Get Drunk and Be Somebody and the raft of other hits he played, you would still find the lineage of country music buried among the high-energy stage theatrics.

And that does set him apart. While contemporary country usually just shoplifts whatever rock and roll has discarded, Keith's guitarists still worked in a significant amount of actual country licks and the drummer still smacked the snare drum rim during ballads the way they did it in Buck Owens' day.

Keith is a former farm boy, oilpatch worker, semi-pro football player and (are you ready for this one?) briefly enrolled philosophy major with a focus on ethics. If there is anybody who should have the common touch figured out, it's him -- and last night's crowd, not to mention more than a dozen gold and platinum albums, made it clear he does.

The modern-country formula doesn't always work as well in the hands of others.

Aaron Pritchett, playing right before Keith, is the epitome of today's penchant for presenting safe-but-searing rock guitar, arena rock style and adult contemporary lyrics as country.

Which went over like gangbusters.

Hitting the stage with Let's Get Rowdy, a purposefully written barroom anthem serving as the first single off of Thankful, his latest album, Pritchett worked the stage from one side to the other.

Then he tore into New Frontier, the hit off his Something Going On Here album.

The girls in the front row baited him with catcalls. It was hard to make out ... something about how his jeans fit.

Pritchett is an aspiring stadium star in his own right.

It all hinges on his sometimes blatant attempt to reach both country and rock audiences, whether the music fits or not.

Prior to Pritchett, another rising Canuck, Jessie Farrell, took on the job of warming the crowd up.

Despite her being a rising CMT star with seven CCMA nominations, Farrell's set was only 20 minutes long, enough time for her to squeeze in her two biggest hits Let's Talk About Love and Fell Right Into You.

The latter, with one of those "so wrong feels so right" type lines, was ample evidence her songwriting has a way to go before reaching the hick-casual cleverness of Keith's.

Then again, Toby Keith ain't going to ever turn heads the way Farrell did in her brown cowboy boots and short denim skirt.

As the evening drew to a close, the audience's boisterous applause made it obvious all three artists' careers won't be over any day soon.

And, good or bad, country music isn't going to change anymore than it already has for a while.