I entered the venue confused, not in a fuddled state of mind but confused about the band. What I had heard to date was a cross between sickly sweet pop sing-a-longs and stadium sized catchy bangers that go down a storm at large outdoor festivals in front of a sea of 18-25 year olds after a day on the cider.

Opening up the evening was Scottish based singer songwriter Bonnie Kemplay, who, supported by her band, performed a short but sweet set which I am sure has sparked enough interest in the masses who decided to arrive early to dig deeper on a certain streaming channel and hopefully give her play count a welcome boost. 

Tracks performed centred around her recently released EP ‘running out of things to say, running out of things to do’ which is a collection of songs written about her relationships with people and with herself through stories and journalistic introspection.

For me, it was her angelic voice that stood out over the acoustic themed backdrop, I have already been in contact with Bonnie to see if I can play one of the tracks from her EP on a future radio show (checkout musomuso.com/muso-fm for more on this).

As ‘The 1975’ stage curtain went up, the audience whooped and hollered, in fact every time the curtain twitched, the excited throng gave out a yelp like an over-excited child when they enter a sweet shop!

Their new record hasn’t long been out and it was refreshing to see that they were playing it in its entirety, allowing the audience to follow the show with the running order on their CD or shiny new LP.

The curtain fell, the band entered the stage which was decked out in a ‘front room’ style, as they entered, the side monitors showed their name and as they walked to their respective spots on stage, the crowd gave them a warm reception. As the final band member took to the stage, Matty Healy appeared, crashed on a couch in the corner, swigging from a hip flask, he pulled himself up to a piano and started kicking out the opening tones of ‘The 1975’, the primary track on their latest long player ‘Being Funny in a Foreign Language’.

Throughout ‘Act 1’, I was undecided if Matty was okay, he was staggering about the stage clutching a bottle of vin rouge whilst chain-smoking cigarettes, hardly the role model behaviour one would expect from the frontman of a band that are celebrating 20 years in the industry this year. I wanted to use this so badly, to draw a dark cloud over the band and tonight’s performance but whenever I decided that he had overstepped the mark, something drew me back in….maybe he WASN’T as sozzled as he made out he was, MAYBE it was all an act, an elaborate hoax to pull the wool over the eyes of the attending masses, a way of ‘getting into character’ so to say for the duration of the album.

As the final bars of ‘When We Are Together’ rang out across the venue, Matty took to the microphone to explain the meaning behind the music, he admitted that he wanted a more glamorous life and instead, “spends all day wanking and watching YouTube videos”, this is not the life he had envisaged. It was at this point that I knew it was an act, he was slurring his words, at one point during his bumbled speech, he told everyone to “shut up for a second” and listen to what he had to say….no matter how well you know your audience, that would never wash and even I was poised with pen in hand to capture the repercussions of this rather outlandish behaviour.

An interval followed, not so much a chance to refresh glasses and empty bladders, more a quick tidy up on stage whilst the band towelled themselves down in preparation for Act 2 which would commence in a few moments. 

Once the band took to the stage again, a refreshed Matty took to the microphone to continue the show, either he had consumed a healthy ‘livener’ backstage or he had dropped the drunken wanderer act and had returned to his original persona of the loveable frontman of The 1975, ready to embrace the audiences wishes and shower them with a steady flow of crowd pleasing classics that they would lap up like puppy dogs, eager to please their master.

It was the likes of ‘Robbers’, Somebody Else’ and ‘It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You)’ that took the Westpoint crowd into the stratosphere, the front row were bobbing along nicely to their delightful output that you just can’t help falling in love with.

The 1975 are certainly NOT a teeny pop band (as I initially thought) and with this in mind, I shall try to sum up my thoughts in one closing paragraph….

Did I leave the show feeling like I now understood the band, the music, the themes of the records they have delivered during their 20 year tenure? No, not in the slightest, but I do know that I’ll definitely be exploring their back catalogue in more detail tomorrow as there is a lot of interesting stones to uncover and I feel that I have gone long enough doubting this solid band and I think that it’s high time I dropped my guard and succumbed to the multi-layered sonic appeal that is The 1975…..I’ll see you on Spotify soon!

Words - Steve Muscutt

Pictures - Jordan Curtis Hughes

Setlist

Being Funny in a Foreign Language

The 1975 (BFIAFL)

Looking for Somebody (to Love)

Happiness

Part of the Band

Oh Caroline

I'm in Love With You

All I Need to Hear (preceded by snippet of Can’t…)

Sincerity Is Scary

I Couldn't Be More in Love

fallingforyou

About You

When We Are Together (Matty introduces the band)

Consumption (Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 5… )

At Their Very Best

If You're Too Shy (Let Me Know)

TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME

Heart Out (Tour debut)

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

Paris

An Encounter

Robbers

Somebody Else

I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)

Love It If We Made It

The Sound

Sex

Give Yourself a Try