The 1975 ‘At Their Very Best’ Concert Review
On January 20th 2020, me and my friend Owen went to see The 1975 perform for the first time at the O2 arena in London. A month and three days later, England went into lockdown, suspending us and the world from attending concerts indefinitely. Almost three years to the day later, me and Owen returned to the same venue to see the same band — The 1975, proclaiming to be “at their very best”. If TikTok videos overtaking my For You page was anything to go by, the band, or Matty at least, was at their/his most interesting. The Beatles had Beatlemania but the North American leg of the ‘At Their Very Best’ saw Mattymania (I just made that up) descend upon us. He was eating raw meat on stage, back to kissing fans, calling out security with autotune and scolding the crowd for throwing menthol cigarettes on stage. Once back on British soil, I began to fear what antics would arise from this leg of the tour. As previously stated, me and Owen were there, so I can disclose a full report of what we witnessed during London Night One.
Whereas their last tour was visual overstimulation of LED screens and bright colours, this new tour stripped everything back to basics — almost like a visual equivalent of their touring album, ‘Being Funny In A Foreign Language’. This time around, the stage was set up as a house divided into several different “rooms”: a kitchen, lounge, hallway, stairs and roof. The band and their instruments were situated around each area, interacting with props as the show went on. Lights were switched on and off, audio trickery made it seem like a car arrived, Matty would watch the television sets and even climbed the roof to perform an emotional, stripped down version of ‘I Like America & America Likes Me’. What really stood out to me about the set design was how clinical it felt.
Lamps situated around the stage gave off orange glows throughout, but the set itself was all white. Crew members were additionally dressed in white lab coats, which really became a prominent feature when Matty yelled out “cut!” after “making a mistake”, causing the lab-coated crew to reset the stage and the band to take the song from the top. There was a little humour added in too as the camera operator cleaned the lens as the stage was being redressed. And when combined, this gave off a feeling of a true production being made and happening before your very eyes. In a way I would equate the production to a 90’s sitcom, with a live audience watching episodes being acted out and recorded before them — think ‘Friends’ or ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ (depending on where you’re from). Adding to this was credits being displayed on the monitors either side of the stage as the band came out, adding to this feeling of a cast performing live on a set.
The show is split into two halves musically, and emotionally, with the first half mostly featuring songs from ‘Being Funny’. It was great to see the show open with a performance of their latest iteration of ‘The 1975’ as opposed to it being played over the PA, but my personal highlight of part one was seeing Carly Holt (wife of Adam Hann, guitarist of The 1975) present to sing her verse on ‘About You’. This was the second time on the ‘At Their Very Best’ tour where Carly sang with them live and being able to witness it was such a treat, reducing me to tears. I was a little sad ‘Wintering’ and ‘Roadkill’ weren’t included in the setlist, particularly for this half, but otherwise the whole setlist was incredible.
Once the first half ended, the band departed from their house on stage and left Matty alone. This is where his TikTok antics really came into play, as his acting as a character who’s emotionally distant from the audience was fully on display and reached its climax. I want to say this character is a representation/embodiment/commentary on masculinity, and the television sets on stage playing footage of Andrew Tate, Logan Paul and Rishi Sunak would help reinforce this. After unbuttoning his shirt and groping himself, Matty ate a few bites of raw meat (again) and done twenty or so push ups before climbing into a television set to disappear from stage. Leaving it empty, until Adam Hann came back to let in another very special guest:
Taylor Swift, who appeared completely out of the blue and made 20,000 of us in the crowd burst out into a collective meltdown. This is where I started to hyperventilate and began crying all over again, as she walked around the stage and made herself at home. With a sequin dress and her guitar, she debuted ‘Anti-Hero’ live for the first time, before covering ‘The City’ from The 1975’s first album. We sadly didn’t get a Matty X Taylor collab — I know, look how selfish it is of me asking for more — but she definitely made her presence known. I haven’t ever experienced a shock like that in my life, and all 20,000 of us were left pinching ourselves asking “did that really happen?” for the rest of the night. I still can’t believe I witnessed that and will never emotionally recover.
After Taylor’s two song acoustic set, the band returned to the stage for the second half of their performance. While the stage itself was still the same, it felt as though the lighting colours were more varied and Matty himself was more turned onto the crowd. It’s all part of the act of course, ignoring the crowd and being a self-contained parody in the first half. But for the second half, between hits from their wider discography, you couldn’t shut him up. He was talking to us, smiling, dancing more chaotically instead of fake-drunkenly and joking around. All of this against the backdrop of songs like ‘The Sound’, ‘Sex’ and ‘Love It If We Made It’ which took us to different emotional atmospheres. We were also treated to the return of “don’t like menthols” during ‘TOOTIME’, which I was really hoping for, and a miniature rant on British politics. It seems like this has been the focus of his dialogue between songs since coming back to the UK, and after seeing clips from the American leg, I was genuinely terrified as to what he’d talk about. But he was surprisingly well behaved — probably because Taylor was in the building.
This my first concert since the pandemic, with the same band, in the same venue as my last. I got to see Matty eat raw meat, cry over Carly Holt and have a breakdown caused by Taylor Swift. But out of all the things I experienced at this concert, one thing really stands out to me: solidarity. This was at a 20,000 capacity arena, and for the two and a half hours the band played for, everybody came together. There were times where it felt as though I could hear everybody around me singing far louder than Matty himself, who had a plugged in microphone, and it felt so liberating and freeing to dance like nobody was watching despite being surrounded by so many people. I finally got the chance to sing ‘Happiness’ along with the band who forged the song into existence too, which happened at the third song in. I was reeling on cloud nine from that alone, but the night just kept getting better. And better. And better. This will be a night I remember forever and tell everybody about for the rest of my life. In fact, I think it’s the best concert I have ever been to. And I can confirm it is a truthful display of how The 1975 are, in fact, At Their Very Best.
If you liked this review, which I hope you did, you can read more of my The 1975 reviews here: ‘People’ Review & Analysis / The 1975 Live At The O2 / Initial Thoughts: ‘Notes On A Conditional Form’ / The 1975 Are Back
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