Probably one of the most talked about bands around, The 1975 shot up to fame with the release of their self-titled debut album in 2013. If you still haven’t listened to this band by now, what have you been doing?! These young ‘uns have been winning fans over left and right, and for good reason. Hailing from Manchester, the band graced the stage at the Paradiso in Amsterdam on March 24th for their second sold out show in four months in the Dutch capital.
Previously having been a church, the concert hall’s stunning interior is an incredibly fitting setting for the indie pop sounds of Manchester’s finest. The four piece stepped on stage in their usual monochromatic attire, welcomed by the piercing shrills of the excited girls that made up at least 90 per cent of the night’s audience. Vocalist and front man Matthew Healy looked out at the packed room with a smile, mouthing the words: “OH MY GOD”; perfectly mirroring the way the crowd was reacting to the band’s presence.
The last time the band had played Amsterdam in November, the distance between fans and band was quite unsettling; with small talk being kept to a bare minimum. This time round, it seems that the band have gotten accustomed to the fame that has surrounded them in the whirlwind of the past year. The night saw Healy waving at fans on the balcony, taking a girl’s coat out of the crowd to try it on, and taking a selfie on a lucky fan’s phone. Maybe all this was to make up for the lack of connection at the last show.
Starting the set with with hit track ‘The City’, The 1975 started the night on a good note. Instrumentals on stage were on point and everyone from the first row to the the parents standing in the back were either singing along or grooving to that infectious drum beat. I mean come on, did you really expect anyone to stand there and not pour their hearts out to “if you wanna’ find love then you know where the city is,”?
The night’s numerous technical difficulties never seemed to cease as half the night was spent watching Healy being chased about by technicians attempting to fix one wire or another. Yet, he continued to nonchalantly chug his wine straight out of the bottle as the other three fourths of the band continued to entertain the crowd with their instrumentals.
Despite these interruptions, the band did not regard it as a setback and delivered a spectrum of different tracks, from poppy, synth infused anthems like crowd favourites ‘Girls’ and ‘Heart Out’ as well as ethereal, divine ballads like ‘fallingforyou’ and ‘You’. These ballads fit perfectly amidst the busy rhythms of the tracks they are sandwiched between. Though throughout the night it’s obvious that the band borrows a hand from pre-recorded background vocals tracks, these slower songs allow Healy to belt out the piercing lyrics in all his purity and vulnerability.
Here’s the interesting thing about The 1975. In today’s scene where bands strive on leaving the stage for a quick minute just to step back out for an ‘encore’, despite being called back or not, this band seems to not believe in said notion. They set out to play a number of songs, in this case 15, and deliver just that. The set was closed with two songs that never seem to leave the radio playlists, and which the band owe a lot of their fame to: ‘Chocolate’ and ‘Sex’.
For a band whose album’s contents are saturated by synth melodies and auto-tuned vocals, the band prove time and time again that they can deliver just as well in a live setting. The technical problems of the night were only minor issues, with fans hardly noticing due to the continuity of the typical 80s inspired feet tapping, hip swaying inducing rhythms throughout the set.
