The standing audience in the Amsterdam Ziggo Dome, filled to the brim, splits into two halves. Just as Moses once guided his people through the Red Sea, Fred Gibson – accompanied by two security guards – moves through the audience to the center of the room. Gibson, better known as the popular DJ, producer and songwriter Fred Again.. makes his way through the audience to the island of the technicians.
Once there, he climbs onto a platform and does what he does best: smashing his beat machine to pieces among frenzied young people. In the fog of smoke machines he blasts live jungle tracks at 145 (!) beats per minute and rock-hard jersey club beats from his fingers. Gibson’s passion for his music and the collective euphoria that resonates throughout the room almost feels religious.
This shared euphoria is also because Fred Again.. is the personification of the life of young people post-corona, freed from restrictions. He became famous during the lockdowns with cry for help hits such as ‘Marea (we’ve lost dancing)’. His entire solo repertoire consists of musical diaries (baptized ‘Actual Life’) full of sound fragments, voice memos and snippets that he recorded along the way at festivals, in subways and on the back seats of taxis. Gibson’s music is blissfully sweet, full of hallelujah moments and often with a touch of aesthetic gloom – to round out the life story.
As hyper-personal as he is in his music, Gibson also enters the stage at the beginning of the evening: from the wings, phone in hand in selfie mode. His selfie video is continuously shown live on the huge screen, his phone is on the edge of his piano. Just like at home. After he has settled in, home videos from Gibson’s private life appear on the screen (upright, filmed in portrait orientation, as if they were stories on social media) and all kinds of texts about connection and gratitude. When he reappears on screen, smiling broadly and playing the piano, the audience screams to pieces. He uses that sound a little later to produce a beat live.
Moving balconies
Gibson is visibly obsessed with music: open mouth, sweaty forehead, lower jaw buried in his neck, and index fingers racing over the drum machines and keys. The bass of partner Tony Friend on the other side of the stage rolls through the room. „Amsterdam, you guys are fucking lit!” During his big hit ‘Delilah (pull me out of this)’, the balconies of the Ziggo Dome (17,000 seats) move up and down violently.
Towards the end, as Gibson gasps for breath from exhaustion, he talks about his first time at the Glastonbury festival, about his sister and about his young niece who was born on that day. In the background, sweet videos of his family and friends dancing at festival tents play. When he starts his hit ‘adore u’, it all feels too slick. Still, it works. It feels sincere and honest, which makes you accept the sometimes sugary-sweet sentiment.
Such euphoric and personal house music is actually only conceivable in the current age of social media. It is the musical translation of a dream in which everyone is as open and honest as Fred Again… And that is particularly infectious.