A bus with Spanish licence plates and containing gas bottles was found near a concert hall in Rotterdam, where a rock concert was cancelled earlier Wednesday due to a threat, the Dutch port city’s mayor said.
Ahmed Aboutaleb told a news conference it wasn’t clear whether the threat and the bus were connected, but he said the bus’s driver was taken into police custody for questioning.
Police told Dutch news agency ANP that the concert by American band Allah-Las was cancelled after a tip from Spanish police.
“Police took this information seriously enough that after discussion with organizers, it was decided to cancel the event,” a statement from Rotterdam police said.
Concert organizer Rotown said earlier on Twitter that the concert venue, a former grain silo called Maassilo, was being evacuated because of the unspecified threat and concertgoers would get their money back.
The show hadn’t yet started when the decision to cancel was made.
Dutch television showed officers in body armour outside Maassilo and what appeared to be members of the band leaving the venue in a white van with a police escort. The band did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.
Allah-Las is a four-piece band from Los Angeles.
In an interview with British newspaper The Guardian last year, band members said they chose the word Allah — Arabic for God — because they were seeking a “holy-sounding” name and did not realize it might cause offence.
“We get emails from Muslims, here in the U.S. and around the world, saying they’re offended, but that absolutely wasn’t our intention,” lead singer Miles Michaud told the newspaper. “We email back and explain why we chose the name, and mainly they understand.”
