If you haven’t heard of The 1975, crawl right
on out from under that rock you’ve been living under, find yourself any form of
device that plays music and give your ears a musical education. The 1975 are a
band no one has been able to escape from ever since they graciously crashed onto
the Alt Rock scene in 2012. Almost four years on, the four have settled more
than comfortably at the orbital centre of their genre.
Their new album, ‘I Like It When You Sleep,
for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It’, hones in the organised mess of
their self-titled debut, yet with a new maturity each song is refined to give
an exhilarating, chaotic cohesion. After debuting at number one on both sides
of the pond, the band have embarked on their largest world tour to date. Attending
one of the four Manchester dates, the band’s hometown, felt like being invited
to the biggest party of the year.
The new-wave lead single from their sophomore
effort, ‘Love Me’, opens the show, captivating the crowd with its intentionally-conceited
confidence. Following it arrives ‘UGH!’, frontman Matt Healy’s ostentatious nod
to cocaine addiction, digested by the audience with much delight as “I’m not
giving it up again!” echoes around the arena.
Aside from some verging on incoherent
mumbling from Healy through a glass of red wine, the band stay focused on the
set. The flamboyant frontman gyrates around a stage of neon pinks and charcoal
greys, as the group fight their way through an astounding
twenty-one songs. The set-list is a seamless journey through their newest tracks
with sporadic classic’s from their debut, such as ‘Chocolate’ and ‘Menswear’.
The central segment of the show becomes a
surprisingly intimate affair. ‘Somebody Else’, a
fan-favourite from the new album, is met with
waving-lighters and smartphone torches. Moving back up the pace, in every sense
of the word, the crashing rapturous finale of the effervescent ‘Girls’ adds an instant lift for the ever faithful crowd; not one of whom are fooled by the
subsequent exit of the band, erupting chants of "we want Sex, we want Sex".
‘If I Believe You’ starts the four song encore and brings everything back
down to earth, with the soothing muffled trumpet and
live choir add a new air of sophistication. The announcement of ‘The Sound’,
the band’s most commercially successful single to date, sends the crowd into
pandemonium. Moments like this make it clear that the self-professed “sycophantic, socratic,
pathetic junkie wannabe” has his fandom at his fingertips. They hang on every
word he says.
The rush of adrenaline for ‘Sex’ surges through
every last person in the room, the pinnacle being Healy drinking in the energy
centre stage, perfectly wailing each lyric in harmony with their meaning. The
mesmerising strobe light show mirrors the swell of energy. A perfectly chaotic ending to the most
perfectly paradoxical chaotic and consistent gig, with every member of the crowd
leaving with the same rush of adrenaline they entered with.