CONCERT REVIEW: Red & Keith Wallen Play Memorable Sold-Out Utrecht Show

On the way to the venue I meet a couple of fans in the bus, excited to finally use the tickets they bought in 2020, finally getting through all the postponed concerts they had planned for years. On this Saturday evening they were excited to see Red’s sold out show, supported by Keith Wallen, who people might know as the guitarist of Breaking Benjamin.

With doors opening at 7pm, I was somewhat surprised to see a line forming beforehand. I’m saying surprised, because I believed the audience tonight would be slightly older, not really bothered to wait too long. But since the show has been rescheduled from 2020, I’d say they’ve waited long enough

My attendance to the show is mostly due to one of my best friends being a huge fan, so I might be a little biased towards Keith Wallen. His music, while still considered to be in the ‘rock’ genre, feels very ethereal and otherworldly to me, something you can easily dream away on. It seems like the audience did just that, completely pulled into Keith’s dreamlike world. Keith slightly wonders if the audience is enjoying theirselves, but the audience mostly seems to be enthralled by the music

The thing is, Dutch crowds are particularly tough. The ‘Dutch disease’ is an international phenomenon, which basically means we don’t really shut our mouths during shows. The fact that the audience was so quiet, meant they just were completely sucked into the music, as they are supposed to be.

After Keith Wallen’s set it does get a little bit more crowded in the venue, for the main act of the night. Red starts their set strong, earning a completely different reaction from the audience. Where Keith’s set was transporting us to different worlds, Red’s set got right into the core of our own bodies. I experienced some sort of sensory overload, as if I experienced brain freeze for the first time, in the best way possible.
The energetic band mentions their first show in Europe was in Utrecht as well, making the connection to the city be a strong one. At the end of the set they still move like they did during the first song, hyping the crowd up to move with them just as much. It’s a shame they couldn’t move the show to a bigger venue, because the band can handle way bigger venues than this one, as a lot of fans seemed to be looking for tickets even until the day of the show. If this kind of response to a band doesn’t warrant a speedy return to Europe, I don’t know what will…

Photographer Christine Mooijer was there to document the evening through pictures, which you can find in the galleries below.