Rating: 5/5
Oh my days. This was my favourite gig in a long time, actually I’m going to say it: THE BEST GIG I HAVE EVER BEEN TO. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a band I love as much as I love The 1975 live before, so this was 6 years’ worth of love in one night.
The 1975 are a four-piece band from Wilmslow, Cheshire (near Manchester), consisting of Matty (vocals & guitar), George (drums & production), Adam (guitar) and Ross (bass). The band’s individual and distinctive musical style lyrically, vocally and in guitar riffs, as well as their well-refined aesthetics is what really drew me to the band in the first place. Everything is so clever, so deliberate and so thought through. “Chocolate” was the first song I heard, played by Zane Lowe on Radio 1 in early 2013, and from that moment I was hooked. The first two albums were real soundtracks to my life (there’s still time for the third one), and their music is something that will always mean a lot to me.
Where to begin about the show? THE VISUALS MAN!!!!! THE STAGE!!!! THE LIGHTING!!!!!!! THE EFFECTS!!!!!!! OH MY DAYS I don’t even know where to start. Let’s go for chronological. (I am sorry if you were there and any of this isn’t what you remember, I was too busy having the time of my life (and was tipsy) to create a full and correct version of events in my head.)
I was accompanied to the millennium dome by my fabulous friend Lady Hélèna of Croydon/ Miss SE25 (or just Hélèna), who I had no idea liked The 1975 until I saw her story of her at their show at the O2 on their 2017 “I like it when you sleep” era show. After having misjudged timing, we got to the O2 later than the start time of the first support act, No Rome, so sadly we missed his performance. We caught half of a band I have real time for, Pale Waves. This must have been their biggest venue yet, so I can imagine they were probably extremely nervous. I don’t particularly remember seeing the crowd enjoying this performance much, maybe on their song “There’s A Honey”, however it seemed like most of the audience weren’t really paying attention, which is sad, but hey at least they played the O2!
(More photos in text + at end)
I’d seen that The 1975’s set was due to start at 8:50, and while “Love Theme” (the second part of “Man Who Married a Robot”) played on loop, just as I’d started to regret going to the toilet by 8:47, the lights in the arena went out, and back-lit smoke filled the stage as the intro track from the band’s third album “The 1975” began to play. The lyrics appeared one by one in big white capitals on a white background. Towards the end of this, the stage went black again, before many strobe lights lit the stage as the band came on, all in suits, and the crowd went absolutely wild. The band’s stage setup was drummer George on a platform at the back in front of a 30-foot screen, where most of the visuals were shown, guitarist and bassist, Adam and Ross respectively, where to stage-left and stage-right in front of George, both next to the huge rectangular outlines which mirrored the screen behind, and another rectangle acted as a ceiling above the stage. Frontman Matty had a travelator across the front of the stage, which really added to his fantastic dancing throughout. The significance of rectangles in this show is two-fold: firstly the album artwork of the band’s first two albums, and previous singles & EPs have included a vertical rectangle, but now with the latest album’s theme of technology, this rectangle also signifies a phone screen. The two screens showing what was happening on stage either side of it were also vertical, mirroring a phone screen. (I apologise for the grainy quality of my photos, but for a phone on full zoom they're pretty damn good)
The band kicked off the set with ABIIOR (A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships)’s treble-heavy lead single, Give Yourself A Try, which was met with huge cheers. This first song’s artwork included the “MFC” (Music For Cars, this era of release 2018-19) letters. This led into another of A Brief Inquiry’s singles, upbeat mainstream favourite TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME. For this one, the lyrics flashed up on the screen as they did with “The 1975”, this time on backgrounds of various bright colours including pink and green. At some point early in the set (but not quite as early as I’d have expected) frontman Matty Healy told the crowd he was extremely nervous, and that the size of the venue was very overwhelming. This was the only time I remember any of the band interacting with the crowd, except for Matty’s occasional shouts of “I love you” and “How you feeling London?”. I heard on the second show at the O2 the following night he spoke to the crowd much more, which I’ll put down to his nerves on the first night.
Following “Too Time” came She’s American, my favourite non-single from the band’s second album “I like it when you sleep for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it”, with a blue/pink ombré effect, mirroring the artwork for the track’s album. Next was Love Me, the lead single from the same album, still going with the pink aesthetic of the album’s era and revealing for the first time three cuboid screens, which moved throughout the show. The set moved back into its era’s album for Sincerity Is Scary and Matty came onto stage having changed into a black top and slacks, with the bunny hat he wears in the song’s video. Mirroring the video also was the large screen, showing a New York street scene. Matty and two twin-like dancers with big afro-hair performed the dance from the video, utilising the travelator to assimilate walking along the street. The whole arena sang the song back as Matty moved the mic away from his mouth as he danced on the travelator. For the first time, Matty grabbed a guitar to perform It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You), which adopted screens based on the ABIIOR album artwork. Again gaining a huge response of screaming and singing from the crowd, all my videos of it are marred by Hélèna’s singing sadly. (Obviously I sang every word, I just stopped when I was recording).
“I like it when you sleep”’s electronic Loving Someone came next, bringing with it a gorgeous billowing rainbow on the screens. Hélèna was very confused by the section of murmuring from Matty towards the end, thinking that he had gone insane because he had just started talking bollocks during a song. As the intro choral vocals of The Ballad of Me and My Brain began, the stage started to change, as Matty climbed up on George’s platform, and the screen behind opened up a rectangular hole that he climbed into. This hole became the central part of an iPhone shown on the large screen, Matty standing in front of the word “Hello”, shown when setting up a new iPhone. “The Ballad of Me and My Brain” is one of the more obscure tracks from the “I like it when you sleep”, but it is a firm favourite of mine because of the lyrics. It talks about Matty thinking he has lost his brain, and his journey to find it. Any song with a mention of Sainsbury’s is a winner in my books. The set moved to another ILIWYS track A Change of Heart, another with brilliant lyrics, including, “Then you took a picture of your salad and put it on the Internet,” and my favourite line of all, “You look shit and you smell a bit.”
The band then welcomed on stage label-mate and support act No Rome, to perform their 2018 collaboration Narcissist. The first time I ever heard the song I knew immediately Matty Healy wrote it, as he has the most individual style of song-writing of anyone I can think of in the last 20 years. Clearly a fan favourite, the audience screamed the lyrics back at the stage. Moving back to the latest album, the band played the mostly instrumental track in two parts How to Draw / Petrichor, which starts slow but changes to a dance-style track towards the end. The lullaby-like beginning with beautiful firework-like sparks across the screen calmed the audience, before the BPM rose and the audience went mad. While the band made playing the guitars & drums to 20,000 people look easy, playing this intricate song live meant they switched to keyboards and synthesisers, which looked so impressive.
After the madness of “How to Draw / Petrichor”, the band took a short break, while the instrumental interlude track An Encounter played, moving the show into the band’s black-and-white “The 1975” era, and into a slow section. As the live instruments started up again, Matty came onto the mic and said something along the lines of “This is one you guys always ask for, it’s something you love, it’s for you,” and the wailing riffs of the Robbers intro started up. This was the first time I really, really heard the whole arena singing the song back word for absolute word. This was followed by Fallingforyou, a slowie from their IV EP, released before their debut album, a song that is made mostly by the interjection of “I DON’T WANNA BE YOUR FRIEND I WANNA KISS YOUR NECK.” Phone torches flashed out across the sea of dark shapes throughout the arena, as the crowd screamed the fantastic line back at the stage. As I had hoped, the next song was You, a song I thought the band would interchange with the melancholy slow croon song “Me” which they had played in the previous show in Brighton.
Next came my least favourite The 1975 song I Like America & America Likes Me. I was tempted to go to the toilet during this because I hate it so much, but pretty quickly the technological squares and colours flashing across the screen hypnotised me, and I actually found it quite profound. The song is still a weird auto-tuned trap mess that I don’t get, but seeing the lyrics popping up on the screen like “no gun required” and “kids don’t want rifles, they want supreme” added to the atmosphere. I am still confused by the song but I now enjoy it more than I did. Another interlude track 12 from the first album played while the band prepared to play Somebody Else. Another of my favourites from ILIWYS, the song utilised the hole in the screen behind again, using the its album's aesthetics, the image of Matty stood in the hole behind George was repeated infinity-fold like when two mirrors face each other. A grid of 49 girls’ eyes appeared on the screen for Girls, from the band's debut album, my favourite of the band’s eras. To finish the main set, the band performed I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes), an emotional swaying number which garnered torches and arms in the air.
And then the encore, when my top two songs by the band were played. To start off, political stance song Love It If We Made It, including visuals of plastic in the ocean and the lyrics “Modernity has failed us,” and “Thank you, Kanye, very cool.” As with “I Like America…”, the performance of the track was very emotional profound, lyrically and in atmosphere. According to Radio 1’s Jack Saunders, Matty’s dad, actor Tim Healy, stood up and screamed “That’s my boy!” (I’m not crying you are.) After this, the intro riffs of my favourite song by by the band, and the first I ever heard, Chocolate, started up, and I felt a rush of emotions, nostalgia, love, happiness, excitement and many more. Black and white glass-like patterns across the screens tied in well with the aesthetic of the “The 1975”. Their highest charting song to date The Sound brought ILWYS pink patterns, as well as the most insane atmosphere. Towards the end of the breakdown, Matty counts the crowd into the guitar solo by shouting “1, 2, 1, 2 fucking jump!” and the crowd went fucking MENTAL, it was absolutely incredible. “The Sound” includes some of my favourite Healy lyrics, “I’ve got a problem with your shoes and your tunes but I might move in, and I thought that you were straight now I’m wondering.” The screens also flashed up with quotes written about the band by journalists and on Twitter including, “pompous arena synth pop.” The show came to a close, just as I wanted to live it all again, and the guitars began to screech the intro of another one of my big favourites Sex. I was SCREAMING, “She’s got a boyfriend anyway” at the top of my lungs while trying not to cry. The lighting became brighter and more intense, peaking in the middle of the song as strobe lighting and smoke filled the stage and Matty fell to his knees playing the loud riffs in the guitar solo.
And then it was over. The band left the stage after saying thank you, the lights came on, and the word “Goodbye” appeared across the screen and a robotic voice repeated the word until I felt I was being physically pushed out of the arena.
I am actually going to stick my head out and say this is the best gig I’ve ever been to. I had the time of my life, knew every word to every song, was enthralled and amazed by the set design, the showmanship of Matty, and insane talent of the rest of the band. What I loved was how the visuals linked so well to the era of the band the song was from, e.g Chocolate, Sex and Robbers were mostly with black & white visuals, Somebody Else, A Change of Heart and She’s American went with pinks, blues and whites, and tracks from ABIIOR were whatever colour (which isn’t very aesthetically pleasing but whatever). The emotions of seeing music you love so much played for the first time were insane. As much as I love seeing unknown bands in small venues, this kind of show would never work in a small venue. Never be afraid to go to a gig in a venue as massive as the O2. Even if you are 100 metres away from the artist, the atmosphere is really second to none.
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