Live Review: The 1975 – Finsbury Park, London 02/07/2023
After arguably the most controversial few weeks in the life of The 1975’s frontman, Matty Healy, the alternative band took to Finsbury Park to perform their biggest headline show yet.
North London’s Finsbury Park commenced the start of their summer diary with a three-date music event, with performances from the likes of Pulp and Jamie T.
After the 2020-delayed Sunday’s lineup was announced we were treated to sets from Dirty Hit mates, The Japanese House as well as Bleachers which is fronted by Jack Antanoff “Best friend” of Healy and producer of The 1975’s recent album, then finally a calming 50-minute set from dream pop heroes Cigarettes After Sex, before the talk of London town, The 1975.
In their usual fashion, The 1975 took to the stage in a very theatrical manner, Healy draped in a white lab coat, setting up the stage for a reworked version of their arena Meta tour – ‘Still At Their Very Best,’ which has sparked controversy amongst press and social media for the past 6 months. Although this time seemed very different, there wasn’t any of the usual antics from the frontman, he almost let the music speak as the band worked their way through the first few songs from ‘Being Funny in a Foreign Language’, their most recent work.
As the light-hearted, dance anthem ‘Looking For Somebody (To Love)’ kicked off, the very surprisingly mixed audience, danced and started to sway along, clearly enjoying the moment, despite any prior thoughts on the comments that Rina Sawayama had said about Healy at Glastonbury, just one week prior to this 50,000 capacity, sold-out concert.
Moving onto ‘Love Me’ from the 2016 catalogue, which is a new addition to their usual setlist, Matty states “It’s really hard to do the first half of the show where I’m supposed to be nihilistic and dour, this is too much fun to do that.” Healy peeling away from his ‘persona,’ that he puts on during his stage time, although sticking to the accustomed lighting of many cigarettes and swigging wine from the bottle.
It seemed like the band wanted to take a step away from the mysterious tones you would stereotypically find at The 1975’s shows, but instead, just have a lot of youthful fun, “We started this band 21 years ago, we are still cool,” in a sense, the band were going back to their roots.
That was until Matty’s walls came breaking down, after an acoustic version of ‘Paris’ which he claims was a “tough time in his life,” just before calling his infamous dad, Tim Healy, to the stage. As Tim effortlessly walked on to sing the track, ‘All I Need To Hear,’ the father and son duo shared a hug, as 34-year old Matty burst into tears, hanging on to his dad whilst muttering what seemed like “I’m so nervous,” causing widespread tears within the audience.
Another break of character for the frontman came when he shouted out his “good friend,” Lewis Capaldi, after his upsetting recent news of tour cancellations due to ill physical and mental health.
Finishing the first half of their show, which is dedicated mostly to their recent album, with an acoustic version of the ever-so heart-wrenching ballad, ‘Be My Mistake,’ the crowd was left anticipating some more dance tunes, to regain the energy levels.
After a quick outfit change and an evident mood change, the Cheshire-born band seamlessly continued into synth-pop, fan favourites, launching into the second half of the night with a singalong classic, ‘If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know).’
One of the biggest changes to the setlist came during the band's shocking surprise restoration of the 2016 track, ‘The Ballad Of Me And My Brain.’
Matty did address the recent backlashes, “The 1975 aren’t a dry band, there’s a lot of irony in it. There’s a lot of jokes that I would take back, there’s probably a couple of songs I would take back if I had the choice.” What better place to address the ongoing negative press about yourself than to 50 thousand people who have paid to see you at your biggest headline date.
During a raw recital of the 2014 B-side, Medicine, a young couple in the audience got engaged, catching the attention of the band, and gaining a massive congratulations from every person in the open-air venue.
As the 2-hour set went on, the group delivered fan favourites, including, ‘About You,’ during which guitarist, Adam Hann’s wife, Carly Holt joined to perform her solo. This popular bridge from the single gained the attention of Tik Tok loving teens and quickly became a viral hit for the band.
After making their way through a lot of the songs from the album ‘I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It,’ the group went back to the beginning, with their toxic love-story single, ‘Robbers,’ the screams from girls on shoulders says a lot about how much this specific song means to the fans that have watched the evolution of the four-piece.
Rounding the show to an end, with a typical Healy comment “Let’s take it back to 2012 when you could write sings about luring girls into cars,” as the band plunged into the attractive, reputable guitar notes of their lead single ‘Sex,’ before a very ragged version of their questionable 2019, almost metal tune, ‘People.’
After making it through the entire set without kindling any major quarrels, silence on the stage and Matty unbuttoning his shirt meant only one thing, especially to those who have laid witness to this before, raw meat was about to be consumed.
On all fours, Healy chomped away at the bone of this red meat, before finishing off with 30 or so push-ups, but what more would we expect from this show, after all, it is The 1975.
Overall, the four-piece indie rock band who are now in their mid 30’s have shown, time and time again that they are a force to be reckoned with and after selling this show out, may I add, in minutes, their notoriety will not be coming to an end any time soon. Especially as they have just announced another UK and Europe tour for 2024.
This special Finsbury Park performance was a perfect illustration of separating the art from the artist, forgiveness, the celebration of indie music from the past 10 years, and a lot of (somewhat) family-friendly fun. A show which will go in the history books for everyone involved.
Words by Lucy Holden
Photo credit The 1975: Jordan Hughes Curtis
Photo Credit The Japanese House: Georgina Hurdsfield
