The 1975: At Their Very Best - O2 London - LIVE REVIEW

Now, this was an unexpected outing for me, but one I'm extremely grateful for. A couple of days ago, out of the blue I decided to check to see if there were any tickets left for The 1975: At Their Very Best. I knew they had sold out a long while ago, and after completely fumbling getting tickets during the pre-sale period, I wanted to make 200% sure I had no chance of seeing them live at any point on this tour. Well, I'm sure you can guess from the title of this post what happened, suspenseful storytelling is a bit wasted on this kind of thing. It took the three of us 45 minutes violently refreshing my laptop, but in the end we secured tickets to see The 1975 live at the O2 in London, at release price no less. Even though it said we'd have a restricted view, the elation for securing a view to the spectacle we'd seen online was more than enough to get us excited to see one of the best bands around in their element. Here's my review of The 1975: At Their Very Best.

(Official tour art - Courtesy of AXS/ The O2)

Let's talk the O2 real quick, because as venues go, I can happily say this is one of the better ones. Built in a way that means crowds don't form all too harshly, it never really felt like a hassle moving around the massive grounds, even once the concert had ended and everyone filed down to the tube station below. It's really easy to get to as well, just a short tube ride on the Jubilee line, and everything is made very clear on your arrival. You go to your gate, scan your tickets, and everything else is already in the facility for you. It's lucky I had O2 priority with my phone contract too, as it allowed us access to a bar space both on the interior and outer oasis of the venue, even if it was full by the time we tried to get in, but would thoroughly recommend the 'Blue Bar' for the good vibes alone if you can, even if drink prices were pretty steep - but I guess that's central London prices.

Merchandising was the usual eye watering pricing too, but it catered to seemingly every fan of every record in the bands lengthy discography. From self titled tour shirts to the new white and blue motif of Being Funny in a Foreign Language, all of the shirts were of decent quality, and retailing at £35 a pop. That's the same I paid at Hella Mega, and it's what I'm coming to expect more and more with gigs. Shit is expensive these days, with hoodies being a colossal £60. But, the reassuring thing about this merch was that it's made in a sustainable way through reverb, a company who ensure the band are touring with ultra low emissions, so it looks good, and does some good too. I secured a t-shirt, like I always do at gigs, before making my way to my seat for the evening to commence.

Music time, and it began with the warm up act Bonnie Kemplay. I can't really say I'd ever heard of them, but nonetheless listened to their set and was pretty impressed by the music I heard. It was very Phoebe Bridgers, and had some pretty guitar riffs and soft dewy vocals from their lead singer. They worked really well together too, and played a good few songs back to back before finally interacting with the growing crowd. The only thing I could really say is that they seemed majorly like fish out of water, that this was something completely new, and therefore had little stage presence, and sounded shy and timid. There was no electricity flying, or exuberant instrumentalists, just five people, looking a little nervous, playing six songs, and then leaving. Pretty music, but I didn't walk away from it feeling all that warmed up, just feeling a little bad that a small indie band had such big shoes to fill in front of a sold out crowd. Then the curtains came down, and out came the now infamous house set that The 1975 play around. The blue curtain climbed, and on came the projection. The O2 was now full, at the 20,000 sold out capacity. The music stopped. The curtain fell. It began.

The show was ultimately made out of three sections. The first was a play through of almost the entirety of their new record Being Funny in a Foreign Language. This was described as the 'show' element of the night, with sitcom-esque credits rolling on the massive screens introducing the band members one by one as they entered the house and geared up to perform. It was clear here, even before any music was being played that they seemed to be playing characters, pastiches of themselves as 'washed up rock stars'. Matty Healey was very dismissive, and barrelled through track after track, chain-smoking and drinking heftily as he stumbled across the stage. Even though they were all putting on an impressive façade, the music was stunning start to finish, with all four of them masterfully executing each track along with their brilliant band. Opening the show with their self titled effort from the latest album, every song from that was amazingly well executed, with Adam Hann, Ross MacDonald and George Daniel all proving why they're all deemed to be 'at their very best' in their respective fields. Healey's voice is one of those very few that sound better than they do on their recordings, throwing in some brilliant vocal harmonies and vibrato into the tracks with seeming ease and class. They've all been doing this for a while, and you can tell they've honed both their craft and their sound over the past ten years. Have a look at my view from my seat, it was insane, especially for 'restricted view' seating.

(The 1975: At Their Very Best - O2 London 2022 - Image courtesy of me)

There were some hilariously meta moments of this performance too, with the 'floor reset' being one that really sticks out in my mind. After apparently fluffing one of his 'lines', Healey calls cut on the show, and a large group of people in white coats wearing recording equipment ran onstage, fixing peoples hair and costume before running back off. As a piece of performance art, it was really beautiful. From the performance of I Like America and America Likes Me set on the roof of the house, performed as an emotional ballad, the genuine and heartfelt ambience of I'm In Love with You, and the electric introspective Fallingforyou, each song felt like a continuation of this narrative, of the rockers slowly falling apart, being consumed by the very thing that they were performing and existing within, especially Healey. Throughout, he drawled on and on about his masculine image and how the things he was consuming in the modern media ended up consuming him, and how he feels all he does these days 'is watch shit, and wank'. It felt like a commentary on masculinity within the music industry, and how mainstream media defines who we are, and how it makes us more submissive than it does switched on to the issues of our communities.

(The 1975: At Their Very Best - O2 London 2022 - Image courtesy of me)

At the climax of this section, Healey literally gets swallowed up by a TV, not before he gropes himself egregiously on a leather sofa, eats a raw steak, and does a bunch of pushups. All of those things were seemingly some sort of masculine schizophrenia, a declaration that being a man was all these manly things contextualised into our internet culture, the exercise, the masturbation, the steak, these performative gestures of gender definition, obliterating the years he spent in dresses and skirts during previous cycles. It left on a poignant and destructive note, with everyone left staring as the show grinded into the halfway point. It really felt like much more than a concert in this first half, and more like a balls to the wall drama series about our society and it's implications. Have a peek at the first half's set list, I've put my personal highlights in bold because I don't have the time or space to write about each one individually, but I will say that I Like America did get me crying:

1. The 1975 (Being Funny in a Foreign Language)

2. Looking for Somebody (to Love)

3. Happiness

4. Part of the Band

5. Oh Caroline

6. I'm in Love With You

7. All I Need to Hear

8. Sincerity Is Scary

9. fallingforyou

10. I Like America & America Likes Me

11. About You (with Carly Holt)

12. When We Are Together

I was almost expecting an interval at this point, for the curtain to go back up, and for there to be ice cream in those shitty little tubs handed out to the audience. But, as the lights came back on and Hann once again came onto the stage, the screens displayed 'THE 1975 AT THEIR VERY BEST, GUEST STARRING...' I assumed this was just the band coming back out again after a quick costume change, and expected Ross or Healy to come back through the door, but as a sequined dress came into focus, the penny dropped meteorically fast. 'TAYLOR SWIFT'. Now, I won't claim to be a Swiftie, because I'm not, to be honest a lot of recent pop music has gone over my head as of late, Swift, Styles, all of it. I haven't even checked out her latest record Midnights yet, much to a few of my friends obvious dismay, but in that second, the sheer surprise of seeing her up on stage caught me, and seemingly everyone else in the O2, off guard. Seriously off guard. There was at least a solid minute of screaming, cheering, applause, and plenty of people shouting "What the fuck is happening?!" before she played her two acoustic numbers for the rapturous crowd. She has a brilliant stage presence, and a brilliant voice as she debuted her new song Anti-Hero for the first time ever live, which felt pretty huge as the crowd screamed along to the chorus, which everyone has heard a million times on Tik Tok by now, even metalheads like me. After that, she did an acoustic cover of The City, one of the songs from The 1975's self titled record, and masterfully adapted the track to her own vocal range. Although I'm used to the song in Healy's grating English accent, Swift really held her own, and delivered a memorable performance that I really enjoyed, even if it just lasted around ten minutes.

The final part was the expected concert experience, with Healey returning to his usual frontman personality, bounding onstage to perform another amazing series of tracks. These ones were the crowd pleasers, the ones that got fans jumping and screaming along. Again, I can't praise these guys enough for their sheer stage presence alone, they owned the stage and performed exceptionally. It's going to be a tough act to follow to see any other live band perform the way The 1975 did. Adam Hann has to be one of the most dynamic guitar players I've seen live, moving along with the music, he's no Van Halen, but his laid back style bursting with sudden dynamism makes him one to watch, especially during the more emotional beats of the concert, like I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes). A lot can be said for the second half performance, have a look at the setlist for the last segment of this insane concert. Like last time, my highlights are in bold:

1. If You're Too Shy (Let Me Know)

2. TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME

3. Chocolate

4. It's Not Living (If It's Not With You)

5. A Change of Heart (audience vote over Paris)

6. Robbers

7. Somebody Else

8. I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)

9. Love It If We Made It

10. The Sound

11. Sex

12. Give Yourself a Try

(The 1975: At Their Very Best - O2 London 2022 - Image courtesy of me)

We even got the final 'don't like menthols' of the tour before TOOTIME, which has been plastered so much on the internet over the past months it wouldn't surprise me if their sales in the states have gone up astronomically. Something about seeing Robbers live too, seeing the raw emotion in that song live on stage, it gave me goose bumps. Hearing the final verses screamed by 20,000 people, that was special, equally as special as I Always Wanna Die, that powerful scream in the final moments of the track really got to me. It felt like catharsis, like this song about feeling suicidal and trying to move past it was getting more and more hopeful with each live performance. And then it was over, almost as fast as it began.

This concert really was a once in a lifetime experience. From the opening performance, the amazing music and the very unexpected special guest, The 1975: At Their Very Best is a tour cycle that can never be replicated, and I doubt, ever be topped.

Rating: 10/10