Red is more classic in terms of how you'll remember leveling in EQ. A lot of people, particularly rogues you level with on blue will have epics and be geared to the teeth. You'll encounter a few camp lawyers farming for TunnelQuest tokens and they get quite mad/petitiony... and in my experience at least that's got worse on blue as time has passed. Everyone feels entitled, and there's no danger there to stop that attitude.
If you continue on red, you'll see that yes there is 1 main raiding guild vacuuming up all the leveling players it can for a zerg force, but there's also <Fresh> who are a continually growing guild on the server and the real alternative when it comes to getting some raids done. Likely you aren't wearing even a set of bronze on your bard, whereas your blue counterparts are decked out in lambent/singing steel already.
Respect is definitely earnt on red. If you're a whiny piece of shit you'll soon get an attitude adjustment, the community runs itself a lot more, and the XP bonus makes the level grind a little more tolerable... it's designed to get you to the end game quicker so you can enjoy frequent pvp. Bards are a great pvp choice, out in the open an experienced bard has a big advantage over most other classes.
I play both servers, but I'd recommend red for a more classic EQ experience where you're leveling with others in equally bad gear which requires people to group together to get things done (classic, right?). Most blue players are so well geared, even leveling warriors can be seen soloing and being antisocial.
The only thing I will say is... you're going to die, and if you get mad about being killed by a player who wanted a fight, maybe blue is the right choice.
What'll it be, OP?
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