Young Saudis embrace music and nationalism at Toby Keith and Rabeh Saqer concert

Country singer Toby Keith became the first American musician to play a concert in Saudi Arabia, but more importantly for the all-male audience, oud player Rabeh Saqer played his first concert in a decade.

Oud player Rabeh Saqer tweeted a photo of himself with US country star Toby Keith ahead of their joint concert in Riyadh. Twitter

RIYADH // Toby Keith is the first American musician to stage a concert in Saudi Arabia, where young people say they are starved of public entertainment and recreation.

But for many of the hundreds of young men streaming into the stadium on the outskirts of Riyadh that MBC had turned into a high-budget concert set, the more important fact was that the oud musician Rabeh Saqer was playing his first concert in over a decade.

Saqer’s songs of nationalism and unrequited love are widely loved here. Less well-known is Keith’s American country variation on similar themes.

“No! That’s what his music is about?” Abdulaziz, 28, laughed when asked if he knew Keith’s songs about killing Taliban or his many odes to alcohol. “It’s a new concept for Saudis ... they’ll get to know the texture of American music,” he added.

The concert, apparently brought together directly by the royal court and not the entertainment ministry, was billed as a night of cultural understanding and synthesis, timed to complement US president Donald Trump’s visit to Riyadh with the goal of strengthening ties that had become strained for a variety of reasons under his predecessor.

The Saudi men in the audience — only males were allowed to attend — were as pragmatic about Keith’s decidedly un-Saudi subject matter as they were about Mr Trump and the superlatively positive atmosphere around his visit, despite Mr Trump’s Islamophobic campaign rhetoric and statements about Saudi.

“I am very comfortable with his way of leading the USA and the relationship with Saudi,” Abdulaziz said. “It’s a good visit for both countries.”

Food trucks lined the plaza outside the stadium, and young men hung out in groups, eating, smoking cigarettes, enjoying the mild weather. Others said their prayers just inside the hall, as the musicians warmed up inside.

For some Saudis, Mr Trump’s decision to make their country his first stop on his first overseas trip as US president has injected a measure of optimism at a time when there is great uncertainty over plans to diversify the economy. A previous generation’s assumptions about the state providing for all their needs has given way to the new realities of sustained low oil prices and austerity policies.

“I expect as a citizen I will benefit from this visit,” said Sokinah Bohligah, a Saudi journalist in Riyadh, who hopes the tens of billions in economic deals and commitments signed during the visit will help create infrastructure and better education and job options. “What the Saudi citizen needs most is job opportunities, what the Saudi citizen wants most is to develop and get better opportunities — this is what matters to me as a citizen.”

In a country where women's lives are legally controlled by male guardians, photos and video footage of Mr Trump's daughter Ivanka participating in meetings resonated with many in the kingdom. The Arabic phrase "daughter of Trump" was the most tweeted hashtag in the country, according to Arab News.

The gender restrictions at the concert have dominated the narrative in the US and elsewhere, and not the opening up of entertainment options that could be an important development for young Saudis if it continues. It is certainly one they support wholeheartedly.

“I don’t mind that it’s only men,” said one of the female reporters at the concert. She said recent shows by Saudi poets and other artists had been mixed, but having the same for the first American musician to perform here would have been pushing too hard against conservative sentiments, which are still powerful.

“Things are changing, we can see them changing,” she said. “It’s a start.”

Backstage, Keith, wearing, unsurprisingly, a cowboy hat and boots, refused to answer questions about the all-male audience. And he insisted his performance had nothing to do with Mr Trump’s visit.

“I just wanted to make history.”