the 1975 tour review

Review: The 1975 triumphant homecoming at their very best - and with surprise star guest Charli XCX

"We are The 1975 from Wilmslow… I don’t have to say how special it is to be here"

• 09:22, 21 JAN 2023

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If you’ve been anywhere near social media in the last few weeks, you’ll no doubt have scrolled past videos from The 1975’s latest string of dates. Matty Healy has always been known for his quirky on-stage antics, and his recent behaviour during the ‘At Their Very Best’ tour has seen the frontman once again hit the headlines.

From eating raw meat on stage to sucking a fan’s thumb - it’s fair to say there hasn’t been a dull moment from the enigmatic frontman. And then there have been the surprise star guests, like when Taylor Swift casually walked out on stage in London.

Fresh from a number 1 album, Being Funny in a Foreign Language, a successful string of US dates and a total of three Brit Award nominations, The 1975 were now back on hometurf. With their adoring fans eager in anticipation - those at the very front having queued through the night to be first into the AO Arena.

Read more : Courteeners make UK chart history with first number one album

Prior to this homecoming gig, the Cheshire band had enjoyed shows in the likes of Cardiff, Birmingham, Brighton and two nights at London’s O2 Arena - the first of which saw global superstar Taylor Swift make that surprise acoustic performance of her hit ‘Anti-Hero’ and old-school The 1975 track ‘The City’.

The prospect of seeing The 1975 ‘At Their Very Best’ was exciting - not just because of how much I enjoyed their latest releases, but the buzz around their live shows was too much to ignore. The stage, more like a theatre set, looks like the inside of a house, where each band member is surrounded by soft furnishings, televisions, a leather couch, wall hangings - you get the idea.

The 1975 arrive on stage, one by one, to a soundtrack of their album opener ‘The 1975’ with their names on the big screens, akin to the style of a classic movie. This sets the tone for the night - as we’re introduced to the ‘show within a show’ directed by Matty himself, who seemingly portrays a messy, frustrated artist.

Swigging on bottles of wine, cigarette in hand, he doesn’t address the crowd at all, but it doesn’t matter because everyone is immersed in the theatrics. The band rifle through newer tracks including ‘Happiness’ and ‘Part of the Band’, intersected with random monologues from Matty.

Stage hands swarm around the house between songs, further creating the illusion of the film set. Occasionally Matty breaks the fourth wall, most notably prior to ‘All I Need To Hear’, where Matty protests that "nothing is real". However what was real was the crowd’s adoration for their heroes on stage, the screams only amplified when guitarist Adam Hann’s wife Carly joined Matty on vocals in ‘About You’.

What followed was Matty Healy at his most self-indulgent. As the rest of the band left the stage and turned off the lights, the troubled frontman was left alone.

He slowly undoes his shirt, and it all feels a bit *too* intimate, proceeding to make sexual gestures. He then crawls in front of some retro-style televisions, which are playing clips of controversial figures - Maggie Thatcher, Putin and Andrew Tate, whilst eating a chunk of raw meat.

The fever dream was almost over, but not before he crawled through the TV and disappeared.

Since Taylor Swift’s shock appearance in the capital, ticket holders have been excitedly predicting who may join them next.

It was after this episode that they finally found out as singer Charli XCX - who happens to be dating The 1975 drummer George Daniel - burst through the front door to perform her track ‘Vroom Vroom’.

The second half of the show, the band ‘at their very best’, was more of what you’d expect from a concert. Matty finally said hello to the crowd, announcing "We are The 1975 from Wilmslow… I don’t have to say how special it is to be here" before launching into ‘TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME’ to get part two off to an energetic start.

It’s so easy to dismiss The 1975 and Matty Healy for what many could regard as on-stage distractions and stunts, but what followed was nothing short of a masterclass in live music.

Hits including ‘Somebody Else’, ‘Robbers’ and ‘Chocolate’ followed, as well as ‘Menswear’ - a track they hadn’t played live for a long time. Before playing ‘Chocolate’ - one of the songs from their first album that catapulted The 1975 to the mainstream a decade ago, Matty Healy thanked fans for their continued support - "10 years ago we put out this album and you’re still here".

The nostalgia carried through as he introduced ‘I Always Wanna Die Sometimes’ - describing how the lyrics were based on the train journey from Manchester Piccadilly to Wilmslow. After an incredible two hours, The 1975 played out their final offering ‘Give Yourself A Try’ - an ode to overcoming personal struggles, which had the Manchester crowd jumping and singing even louder than they had all night.

A gig like no other I’d ever seen, a show you felt part of. It was theatrical and a bit odd at times - and although that’s all part of the allure, underlining all of that was an incredible roster of undeniably brilliant music.

There was absolutely no doubt that we’d witnessed a band in their prime… or At Their Very Best.

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The 1975 live in New York City: a raw and raucous night at the Garden

Manhattan, New York, November 7: The British band host an unforgettable and cathartic night at Madison Square Garden

“I’m sorry if you came with your dad and I was touching my dick,” Matty Healy laughs halfway through The 1975 ‘s New York City set. “It’s your fault for bringing your dad.” Not long before this comment, the frontman is sat on a couch touching himself with one hand and balancing a cigarette with the other. He then kneels down on the stage, picks up what appears to be a piece of raw, bloody steak and unceremoniously takes a bite into it before crawling into a television screen. Is it a metaphor for the dangers of consumerism? A boundary-pushing merging of live art and music? Before the audience can answer those questions and make sense of the staggering moment, the music kicks in again.

Theatrics are to be expected on a tour ambitiously titled ‘ At Their Very Best’ tour, which is evident right at the start of the set as a huge curtain drops revealing that the English band has built a larger-than-life two-tiered house right in the middle of Madison Square Garden. In between songs Healy, Adam Hann, Ross MacDonald, and George Daniel turn on lamps, switch off lights, and walk around their transient home, adding comforting minutiae to a set that’s anything but subtle.

The constant movement, chain-smoking, sips from a flask, and unprompted comments on the state of things (“If I was Kanye , I wouldn’t of said any of that stuff,” Healy tells the crowd at one point) could be distracting if it were any other band’s set. But this is The 1975, and they can get away with it all because the songs are too damn good to be overshadowed.

The first half of the set sees the band presenting almost all tracks from their latest offering, ‘Being Funny In A Foreign Language’, and with the Garden as a backdrop coupled with the energy of fans hanging on to Healy’s every word (“It’s called crowd work” he explains) heard live, each song takes on a new life.

• READ MORE: The 1975: “I’d rather be a pretend supervillain than some pretend hero”

The evening officially starts with the opening keys of ‘The 1975 (Being Funny in a Foreign Language)’ leaving the piano and slowly surging upwards, hitting everyone from the front row to the nose bleeds, while the apologetic lyrics, “ I’m sorry if you’re livin’ and you’re seventeen” , circle the venue like a mantra. Once ‘Looking For Somebody (To Love)’, kicks in next, with the band’s showmanship in full effect, and the frontman hurling around his guitar as he hops off and on an ottoman bed, the sold-out arena takes on the energy of a raucous house party.

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It’s rare that band’s latest songs hit as hard as the worn-in songs fans have been listening to for years, but The 1975 transition from their fifth album, into the ‘Greatest Hits’ portion of their set with ease. And in an age where many artists play through a set without no stops for lyrical exploration, Healy’s on-stage liner notes are appreciated. Before the slow-burning ‘fallingforyou’, he tells fans, “this house is based on the next song”; before ‘Love It If We Made It’, he acknowledges that “the point of the next song was not to have to play it”; later in anticipation ‘Somebody Else’, he tells the audience, ‘This is a sad song, but I’m fucking over it.”

“You know the thing with us?” Healy says somewhere between performing 1975 classics, ‘The Sound’ and ‘Sex’, “we just keep getting better, baby.” Bravado aside, there’s still a note of awe in the band’s presence on stage. “Fuck, Madison Square Garden, look at us? How fucking sick are we?” the frontman says with a laugh towards the end of the set, as if the realisation of the magnitude of the moment has just hit him.

Following a celebratory performance of ‘Give Yourself A Try’, as The 1975 sends fans back into the streets of Manhattan, with a closing note that “we are hammered, and I don’t know how long we can sustain it,” there are a surprising amount of tears and puffy eyes mixed with grins on the faces of those leaving. There’s a sense of relief in the air. Perhaps it’s the cathartic release that could be blamed on the sincere stage banter, Healy’s voice breaking during ‘I Love It If We Made It’, or the therapeutic after-effects of dancing joyously to sad songs.

It’s the kind of night that only The 1975 could host, the type of evening that leaves you buzzing and remembering why you love live music in the first place, walking home and thinking aloud, as one fan did before heading towards the subway: “I didn’t know how much I needed that.”

The 1975 played:

‘The 1975 (Being Funny in a Foreign Language)’ ‘Looking for Somebody (To Love)’ ‘Happiness’ ‘Part Of The Band’ ‘Oh Caroline’ ‘I’m in Love With You’ ‘All I Need to Hear’ ‘Roadkill’ ‘fallingforyou’ ‘I Like America & America Likes Me’ ‘About You’ ‘When We Are Together’ ‘If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)’ ‘TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME’ ‘Me & You Together Song’ ‘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’

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My heart started racing as the curtains parted to reveal a stage set up like none I had ever seen before. A stairwell, living room and couches adorned with dim yellow lamps decorated the Kaseya Center stage. Once the beginning notes of “The 1975” started to play, I knew it would be an unforgettable night.

On Oct. 17, English pop-rock band The 1975 performed at Miami’s Kaseya Center to complete the 12th show of their North America tour “The 1975: Still…At Their Very Best.” Thousands of fans gathered to witness the almost two-hour set, and energy remained high the entire time.

The band, which consists of lead singer Matty Healy, guitarist Adam Hann, bassist Ross Macdonald and drummer George Daniel, unite to create a symphony of music beloved by people all around the world. Their recent 2022 album, “Being Funny in a Foreign Language,” received widespread praise and reached number seven on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart.

Before attending the concert, I heard rumors and saw videos suggesting that Healy’s performance style was messy. With a flask in one hand and a cigarette in the other, he sways and clumsily trips around while delivering his songs.

Though this is true, his vocals are never compromised. Rather, I left impressed by how great he sounded live. On the stage, Healy’s vocals are given full range to deliver.

The 1975 has mastered the art of entertainment. Theatrics are non-negotiable when you attend one of their concerts. Although some fans complain that Healy doing 20 push ups, jumping into a T.V. or inspecting a naked wax figure of himself for 10 minutes takes away from the music, I disagree.

The music and Healy’s eccentric personality mesh to keep you on your toes the entire time. For The 1975, it’s not just a concert, but a production.

Those two hours consisted of hits from their most recent album such as “About You” and “I’m in Love With You,” as well as older icons such as “Robbers” and “Love it if We Made It.”

The excitement palpable from the audience every time a crowd favorite came on was a blessing to both witness and experience. I remember the bright, white lights emanating from the stage, then transitioning to a rainbow display of led lights to queue in “TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME” and an eruption of dancing from everyone around me.

But it wouldn’t be a The 1975 concert without a taste of Healy’s controversial takes. Over the years, the performer has built a persona of someone who speaks their mind, even if it gets him occasionally in trouble. The bit is worked into every one of their concerts in different forms.

For the Miami show, Healy stopped music to begin a few minutes of social commentary, complemented by projections of subway surfers and cup stacking videos to get the crowd’s attention. At one point, he addressed booing fans by cursing them out.

Despite the drama, the music, stage production and energy were great. The 1975 fans really know how to have a good time — screaming the lyrics, unashamedly dancing and obediently jumping when Healy demands them to jump.

I for one can say, there was an ear-to-ear smile plastered on my face the whole night.

The Miami Hurricane is the student newspaper of the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. The newspaper is edited and produced by undergraduate students at UM and is published in print every Tuesday and online everyday during the academic year.

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Culture | Music

The 1975 at the O2 review: the most compelling pop band on the planet

Few frontmen polarise opinion quite like Matty Healy . The greatest popstar of his generation or an irritant of epic proportions depending on who you ask, there’s absolutely no denying his notoriety, not least because his antics during The 1975’s most recent live dates have been the talk of TikTok for months.

Pulling up in London on the same day the band were nominated for three BRITs – including Album of the Year for 2022’s Being Funny In A Foreign Language – the playfully-titled ‘The 1975 At Their Very Best’ tour more than lived up to its billing. Over the course of two and a half hours, fans were treated to some truly theatrical staging, a plethora of huge hits and A-list interval entertainment courtesy of Taylor Swift .

Playing out across a set cleverly replicating a two-storey house, the first half of the show turned all perceived notions of arena rock on its head. Devoted almost exclusively to material from their latest LP, it saw band members stationed in different rooms while Healy roamed the set playing the role of louche rockstar, mumbling, chain-smoking and alternating swigs from a bottle of wine and a hip flask. Impressively, none of these affectations distracted from the music, be it the piano-powered groove of Oh Caroline, About You’s slow-burning shimmer or the stunning vocal harmonies that closed out When We Are Together.

Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable if worryingly convincing portrayal, made doubly disorientating every time he broke the fourth wall by eyeballing an artfully positioned video camera, embracing a stagehand, or by explicitly acknowledging the artifice in lines like, “So here we are, method acting.” The performance reached its famously surreal climax with Healy alone on stage, stripped to the waist, devouring lumps of raw steak and performing press-ups before crawling into a TV.

Preceding a more straightforward second act in which Healy switched back into conventional frontman mode, Taylor Swift appeared through a door, strapped on an acoustic guitar and gave her latest smash Anti-Hero its live debut, before covering early 1975-track The City. Any worries that the band had been upstaged by the world’s biggest popstar were instantly allayed by the barrage of big singles that followed, including fan favourites Robbers, The Sound and It’s Not Living If It’s Not With You.

“The thing about us is we just keep getting better, baby,” Healy had bragged following Chocolate, displaying some of the cockiness that his critics find so maddening. And yet on last night’s evidence, he’s right: The 1975 might just be the most compelling pop band on the planet right now.

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NEWS... BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT

The 1975 tour review: Ingenious stage design for band that dragged rock into the new era

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It’s been a long time since rock music was ‘the future’.

That period spanned 1965 to 1985 – into which, going by their name, you’d think The 1975 would slot neatly in the middle. Not so: they may evoke the past, but they are also the only major act today who have, creatively speaking, dragged rock into the 21st century.

So while their latest album ,  Being Funny In A Foreign Language, has a fashionably strong Eighties aesthetic, its fluid butterfly funk-pop and amorphous plastic soul are rendered absolutely of the moment by Matty Healy ’s ultra-meta songwriting, his gift for giving form to the Very Online neuroses of the age.

Live, The 1975 have created the show those songs deserve. This tour hangs upon an ingenious piece of staging.

Without spoiling too much: imagine a theatrical hybrid of The Beatles’ Help movie, Mad Men, and Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense, which eventually goes full David Cronenberg.

The first hour of their Brighton Centre show, a self-contained piece, was taken up with the new record. Healy is a rare louche and jaded pop star in an era when wholesomeness and conforming to pious orthodoxy is much more the thing, and his depiction of damaged masculinity was gripping. 

The second part, a more traditional best-of set, and a reminder of how the band started as a cooler iteration of U2, was rousing, but mainly it underlined how far they’ve come.

‘Ten years since that [self-titled debut] album,’ said Healey, ‘and I feel like we’re just getting good.’

They’ve always been good, in fairness. But right now they’re bloody brilliant. And unique.

MORE : Matty Healy branded ‘gross’ after sucking fan’s thumb and ‘french kissing’ concert-goer on The 1975’s chaotic tour

MORE : The 1975’s Matt Healy eats ‘raw meat’ on stage while shirtless and fans have questions: ‘What did I just watch?’

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The 1975 Were Truly “At Their Very Best” at Madison Square Garden in NYC: Recap

The post The 1975 Were Truly “At Their Very Best” at Madison Square Garden in NYC: Recap appeared first on Consequence .

Leave it to The 1975 to call their new tour “The 1975 at Their Very Best.” After all, this is a band that does not shy away from hyperbole, theatrics, or reminding us how much they love being The 1975. In fact, they don’t really shy away from anything. Their new show is, without a doubt, their finest yet, and witnessing them headline New York City’s Madison Square Garden last night (November 7th) was watching a band that is truly in their prime.

“The thing about us, ladies and gentlemen,” frontman Matty Healy reminded the audience over an hour into the show, “we just keep getting better.” The audience roared in agreement, and the band immediately segued into the fan-favorite “It’s Not Living (If It’s Not with You).”

There was a palpable confidence emanating from the band last night, and especially from Healy: Throughout the show, he chain-smoked cigarettes, took dozens of swigs from not one but two flasks onstage, ate raw meat , sang a song on the roof(?), did pushups in front of a television before crawling inside it, certainly touched his… area more than once (“Sorry if you brought your Dad to the show and I was touching my dick,” said Healy after the intermission, “That’s your fault for bringing your Dad”).

But even before The 1975 took the stage, the tone for the evening was set perfectly by the band’s label mates and chosen opener for the tour: BLACKSTARKIDS . Having seen the trio open for fellow Dirty Hit artist beabadoobee last year, I was no stranger to the band’s explosive energy — but that doesn’t always translate into a massive arena like Madison Square Garden.

It’s a tough task for any arena opener, especially when they begin their set with the house only half full, but BLACKSTARKIDS arrived with a visceral blast of energy. All three members of the band looked like they were having the time of their lives on that stage, and it proved to be a rousing and endearing set. If you’re planning on attending “The 1975 at Their Very Best” (and you can get tickets here , if so), be sure not to miss BLACKSTARKIDS — they might just be your new favorite band.

When BLACKSTARKIDS left the stage and The 1975 arrived, the curtain dropped and revealed a large set that resembled a house, complete with furniture, windows, separate rooms, a roof, and a dazzling spiral staircase. The show followed two fairly concrete acts of 12 songs each: The first act saw the band playing nearly every song from their brand new LP, Being Funny in a Foreign Language , while the second act was all killer, no filler hits from the band’s other four studio albums.

The 1975, photo by Jordan Curtis Hughes

The first act was much more serious from the band — if not serious, then more focused. Healy was much more consumed (and in many cases, doing the consuming) with the “performance” of Being Funny , saving all the crowd work for the second act. But seeing the first seven songs of  Being Funny played in full, back to back, was a wonderful reminder of how much this band has grown since their scrappy early days. “Happiness,” “I’m in Love with You,” and “Oh Caroline” were already massive sing-a-long moments for the eager crowd, and they’re notable entries in The 1975’s now iconic catalogue.

The set began to deepen as Healy ascended to the “roof” of the set to perform “I Like America & America Likes Me” from the band’s third album,  A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships . A staple of their live shows since 2019, this heavily auto-tuned, wildly urgent number has never lost its unsettling power. You could still feel the desperation in Healy’s voice as he barked, “I’m scared of dying/ It’s fiiiiiiiiiiiine!”, his absurd vocal run becoming both disarming and appropriately over the top.

The  Being Funny portion of the show concluded with the closers “About You” and “When We Are Together.” Healy introduced the band before being left alone onstage amidst a cacophony of noise, glitching television screens of unsettling news clips and images, and stage crew members in white coats removing the furniture of the house. Healy first enjoyed a cigarette on the couch (and I mean enjoyed ), then knelt in front of a plate of raw beef and proceeded to take several bites.

After the bizarre feast and several more swigs from his flask — which he explained later on was indeed real alcohol — Healy began doing pushups in front of the stack of glitching TVs. Fixated on their eerie glow, Healy moved closer and closer… before jumping into the television completely. The series of events seemed to be Healy’s meditation on the performance of masculinity, and throughout the show, he sarcastically referred to himself as being “a real liberal man.” It’s a fitting topic for Healy and the band, given the softer and more introspective energy of Being Funny . But it’s also classic Matty Healy to eat raw meat onstage, to play with the audience’s expectations, to perform “indulgence” with a wink and a nudge.

As the second act began, Healy returned in a new outfit, and the show kicked up a few notches. The band was definitely eager to keep the party going, and everyone began to loosen up a bit more. Healy began engaging with the crowd much more often, saying, “No more of the black-pilled performance art stuff, had to get that out of the old system,” and signaling that theatrics from earlier were, in fact, just theatrics. Drummer George Daniel demonstrated his usual air-tight, crisp style, and brought even more energy to moodier tracks like “Somebody Else” and “Paris,” while bassist Ross MacDonald and guitarist Adam Hahn began to fly across the stage with joy and excitement.

Despite more than a couple cigarettes, Healy sounded brilliant all evening, seemingly capable of pushing his voice past a limit that few other vocalists can manage. When the band brought out both “I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)” and “Love It If We Made It” back to back, Healy crooned, cried, thrashed, and bellowed, leaving everything out on the stage and connecting to his words in a physical and emotionally profound way. It was around this moment that it became clear — this is a band like no other.

The 1975’s show last night was an example of pop art being done at an extremely high level. For every song that’s dressed in an ’80s pop style, for every sticky sweet, instantly relatable hook, there’s a deepening happening somewhere, somehow. There’s a thread between the sinister lyrics and bright sonics of “Looking for Somebody (to Love)” and the ecstatic-but-depressed style of “It’s Not Living (If It’s Not with You).” It’s difficult to even describe the catharsis offered by the band’s best song, “Love It If We Made It.” The flurry of references and urgent cries for hope are rousing, painfully vivid images of our modern world, and each opportunity to witness “Love It If We Made It” live is like an obligatory 1975 church sermon.

The show proved that Healy’s jagged, personal writing is lifted through the band’s infectious musical language, and the combination has taken them to massive heights. “We’re playing the Garden… We’re really big now,” said Healy last night. This may be The 1975 at their very best, but everyone at Madison Square Garden could agree with Healy’s boastful claim: They just keep getting better.

Note: you can catch The 1975 on tour this year. Buy tickets here .

The 1975 Setlist: The 1975 (Being Funny in a Foreign Language) Looking for Somebody (to Love) Happiness Part of the Band Oh Caroline I’m in Love With You All I Need to Hear Roadkill fallingforyou I Like America & America Likes Me About You When We Are Together

If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know) TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME Me & You Together Song It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You) Paris Robbers Somebody Else I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes) Love It If We Made It The Sound Sex Give Yourself a Try

The 1975 Were Truly “At Their Very Best” at Madison Square Garden in NYC: Recap Paolo Ragusa

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On spectacular new tour, The 1975 are truly at their very best | Review

• Published: Nov. 10, 2022, 12:40 p.m.

The 1975 performed Wednesday night at Freedom Mortgage Pavilion in Camden. Matty Healy of The 1975 is seen performing here on August 28, 2022 in Reading, England. (Photo by Joseph Okpako/WireImage) WireImage

• Bobby Olivier | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

The 1975 does nothing by accident.

The beloved British rockers are known to be ducks on the pond, unfurling easy, high-gloss hooks for casual fans and churning wildly beneath the surface with meticulous arrangements appreciated by the diehards, who’ve dutifully followed the band from their buzzy pop breakthrough in 2013 to their experimental period, with 2018′s outrageous yet excellent “A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships” and 2020′s more opaque and coolly received “Notes on a Conditional Form.”

Even now, as the hugely popular foursome from Manchester, U.K. enjoys a return to acclaim with last month’s release of “Being Funny in a Foreign Language” — a more grounded and highly addicting fifth LP (one of my favorites of 2022), shepherded in part by New Jersey super-producer Jack Antonoff — they remain deeply deliberate in their movements.

Enter Wednesday night at Freedom Mortgage Pavilion in Camden, where a sold-out crowd witnessed an early date on the coyly named “1975 At Their Very Best” new U.S. tour — a highly stylized performance reveling in the realism and intensity of an Arthur Miller play. The stage set was as elaborate as anything I’ve seen this year (or in recent memory), with the full construction of a cluttered 1950s/60s-era rec room: Stocked bookshelves, mid-century television sets, couches, chairs, lamps, radio, coffee table, vases of flowers, an ancient vacuum, not to mention functioning doors and windows, where the band — all dressed in retro slacks and button-downs, most wearing sport jackets — could exit or enigmatic frontman Matty Healy could peer out to a camera for dramatic effect. The stage was bookended by a spiral staircase to nowhere and a 30-foot telephone pole with a street light.

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All that, plus the clusters of instruments and the band’s touring iteration, which includes an additional four members on extra guitars, percussion and saxophone. There should’ve been a playbill.

The exhilarating two-hour set was split in half, the first hour focusing on the new record and interacting directly with the melange of domestic set pieces — a dramatic shift from the band’s minimalist tours of the past, where monolithic pink-neon screens were all they needed to commandeer the Stone Pony in Asbury Park a few years back.

Healy, 33, played a tortured character here, like a “Mad Men” star just home from the office, chain-smoking cigarettes (real cigs) and taking swigs from a silver flask (not convinced he was actually boozing). He took turns rubber-legging at the microphone like Elvis Presley for the uptempo newbie “Looking for Somebody (to Love),” and sat in a chair, kicking his feet up on the coffee table and flatly telling the crowd “thank you for coming over” during fellow newcomer “Happiness.”

While Healy himself has always appeared rather aloof on stage, he cranked up the distance during this segment, rarely facing the audience of 7,000 teens and twenty-somethings, seeming to become lost in his character’s torment. Still, the mood was sunny enough for the booming ‘80s-synth shmaltz of “Oh Caroline” and “I’m in Love with You,” with its simple teenybopper hook. Things turned darker around 2013′s “Fallingforyou,” a more somber deep cut, which caused the young woman next to me to burst into heaving sobs.

The open weeping, both from her and surrounding fans, intensified during 2018′s smoldering ballad “Be My Mistake,” which Healy prefaced by revealing, to no one in particular, that “I’m not very good at being at home or by myself.” Though he was sure to maintain his sex appeal, slowly unbuttoning his shirt and thrusting his hips from a couch, then walking over to a now-rearranged stack of TVs and doing push-ups before them — and then he, uh, climbed into one of the TVs. He did not consume any raw meat , as he did at his Madison Square Garden performance Monday night.

The theatrical approach, while memorable, surely fed into the air of pretension (and subsequent derision) that’s always followed The 1975 — few bands of the last decade are more exhaustively attacked and defended on social media. Were this the show’s only tone, such further criticism would’ve been warranted.

But again, this was only the first half. And my God, what a second half!

Fueled by hits the band had held back, the final hour was a clinic in pop-rock propulsion, elation and fury. It was everything the band, who certainly remain at the height of their power, can and should be — a blistering run led by Healy, who emerged (from the stage door) in a new black-and-white suit, as did the rest of the band, like millennial Blues Brothers, minus the fedoras.

“I was just pretending before,” Healy joked about his surly character, finally cracking a smile.

The crowd lit up here, belting along to ‘18′s beaming “It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You)” and 2016′s mercilessly catchy “The Sound,” where the stage was illuminated in lavender, Healy pulled the on-stage camera down to his crotch and fans blissfully bounced in time.

Some sweeping, soul-affirming catharsis came with the towering alt-rock cut “I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes),” with Healy strumming an acoustic guitar under a single spotlight. That moment I won’t soon forget, nor the explosive “Love It if We Made It,” — a political, punky romp that found Healy full-throat screaming before flashing white strobes. Full body chills; a throttling beast of a tune.

As the show sped to a close and the crashing guitar breaks of “Sex” gave way to the manic pure-pop utopia of “Give Yourself a Try,” Healy screamed, with some level of sarcasm: “We are the best band in the world!”A lofty claim, of course, but after this spectacular outing, he may not be far off.

The 1975′s setlist

Nov. 9, 2022 — Freedom Mortgage Pavilion, Camden, N.J.

• “ The 1975 (Being Funny in a Foreign Language) ”
• “ Looking for Somebody (to Love) ”
• “ Happiness ”
• “ Part of the Band ”
• “ Oh Caroline ”
• “ I’m in Love With You ”
• “ All I Need to Hear ”
• “ Roadkill ”
• “ fallingforyou ”
• “ I Like America & America Likes Me ”
• “ About You ”
• “ When We Are Together ”
• “ Be My Mistake ”
• “ If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know) ”
• “ TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME ”
• “ It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You) ”
• “A Change of Heart”
• “ Robbers ”
• “ Somebody Else ”
• “ I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes) ”
• “ Love It If We Made It ”
• “ The Sound ”
• “Give Yourself a Try”

Bobby Olivier may be reached at [email protected] . Follow him on Twitter @BobbyOlivier and Facebook .

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The 1975’s Madison Square Garden Show Was Beautifully Packed With Cigarettes, Raw Meat, And Feeling

At a sold-out show at New York’s 20,000-cap Madison Square Garden, a shirtless Matty Healy got down on his knees and held a raw steak in one hand and his crotch in the other. The 1975 frontman dug his teeth into the meat and everyone murmured and put their phones up to take a video. There’s something beautiful about it, or at least I think so; I have no reasoning other than that it’s ridiculous and the reactions have been visceral. Some are dissecting the meaning of this act of performance art, but more are rolling their eyes or feeling sick. After he finished chewing, he crawled slowly to a box television that displayed a catalog of ape NFTs and he climbed into the screen.

There’s a viral tweet I saw recently that comes to mind: “matty healy is disturbing, weird, embarrassing, cringeworthy and awful. and he is the love of my life.”

matty healy is disturbing, weird, embarrassing, cringeworthy and awful. and he is the love of my life. — lucy 🗡️ (@givelucyatry) November 5, 2022

This statement can sum up a lot of the appeal of The 1975. Fans are disgusted by the heartthrob’s antics — whether it’s touching himself on stage or tweeting things like “ might start working on my handwriting cos some of these tattoos are f*cking dog sh*t ” — yet that disgust is mixed with a deep, confusing love. So much so that The 1975 sold out one of the biggest venues in New York.

They went on at 8:45 P.M. and Healy sat at a piano, cigarette in hand, slightly messing up the rhythm to “The 1975,” the opener of their bright new album Being Funny In A Foreign Language and not to be confused with their four other songs of the same title. The sound of the track is shamelessly influenced by LCD Soundsystem, who just released their first song in seven years just in time for what many people are deeming the revival of indie sleaze. Healy probably knows this, especially considering one of the afterparty DJs was The Dare whose song “ Girls ” is an inescapable, Manhattan-centric Peaches homage. While it’s safe to say that The 1975 have nothing to do with that scene, one could argue they’ve got the irony element nailed down. “This will get bigger, if you know what I mean,” Healy sings, opening the LP with an innuendo. But what separates them from others is that they walk the tightrope between irony and earnestness, and they do it gracefully. He continues: “And I’m sorry if you’re living and you’re seventeen.” For some reason, this line makes me and millions of other twentysomethings emotional, as if it still applies to us, as if we’re still seventeen.

That’s part of the deep love that fans have for The 1975 — the way their music feels perpetually juvenile, refusing to grow up. “I like my men like I like my coffee / Full of soy milk and so sweet, it won’t offend anybody,” he sings on “Part Of The Band,” which simultaneously questions our own ability to be sincere: “Am I ironically woke? / The butt of my joke?” Sometimes it feels like The 1975 is a social experiment, or rather just a vessel through which Healy tests the limits of what he can do, such as touching himself on stage. But that’s part of the fun — flirting with transgression. The best part about Healy is that he doesn’t want to be liked — a brave trait that’s impossible to find. The man literally said no to opening up for Ed Sheeran because it just didn’t feel right to him. He’s real. As he slouched down on the couch and touched his crotch at Madison Square Garden, the girl next to me blurted, “I’m uncomfortable.” “I’m very comfortable,” I said. She smiled and said, “We’re like yin and yang.”

I, like Healy, have been drinking too much and smoking too many cigarettes because of the ever-expanding sense of doom hovering over no only my own life, but also the world in general. It’s the kind of doom that forces everyone into apathy. For years, I only listened to songs that mimicked the emotional and mental state I was in; I filled my ears with monotonous instrumentation and passive vocals exhaling words of hopelessness. The 1975 were an unlikely respite. As they played through the new record, no one could’ve guessed that this band’s fanbase is known to be depressed. Everyone danced; the groove was undeniable and irresistible, like during “ I’m In Love With You ,” a buoyant love song with the simple hook. As they balance irony with earnestness, they also balance dread with hope — sometimes there doesn’t even need to be a reason for hope, it’s just an enlightening, infectious riff or an unabashed declaration of love.

Their live rendition of Being Funny In A Foreign Language was nonlinear and speckled with old songs as well, including “Roadkill” from 2020’s Notes On A Conditional Form and the fan-favorited classic “Fallingforyou” off their debut, which contains the Tumblr-iconic line: “I don’t wanna be your friend / I wanna kiss your neck,” a refrain the crowd screamed collectively. They have come a long way since that LP; their hits could’ve remained their hits, like “Chocolate” or “Robbers,” in the same way that Arctic Monkeys ’ hits are still “Do I Wanna Know?” and “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?” from their fellow Tumblr-iconic album AM . But The 1975 are moving with the times and continuously unleashing memorable music that sticks. “Love It If We Made It” is a great example of that. He prefaced the song by complaining about still having to play it. I was grateful he did. The night before, I cruised down the left lane of the highway with my friend in the passenger seat and smoked a cigarette and blasted “Love It If We Made It” and screamed along, our voices getting louder every time the lyric got better: “And poison me, daddy / I’ve got the Jones right through my bones,” “Rest in peace Lil Peep / The poetry is in the streets,” “Thank you, Kanye, very cool,” to name a few. The song is a radical rejection of apathy and a brief jolt of feeling in this big cloud of numbness.

“Love It If We Made It” live was invigorating and powerful, especially followed by “The Sound” from their sophomore album I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It and then “Sex” from their debut. To continue with back-to-back bangers, they closed with “Give Yourself A Try,” a shot of adrenaline with vivacious riffs and a jittery beat. “Won’t you give yourself a try,” he repeated over and over, and it was like a continual waking up.

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The 1975 review, Los Angeles: Manchester band dazzle LA, but Matty Healy can be a difficult pill to swallow

Tom murray is at once enraptured and distracted by the 1975’s untameable frontman as the manchester band rock los angeles, article bookmarked.

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Matty Healy is lying on a leather couch, smoking a cigarette and running his hand feverishly across his naked chest and onto his crotch. That might sound like quite odd behaviour in front of a stadium full of people, but if you’ve been paying any attention whatsoever to The 1975 ’s ongoing tour, it’s all par for the course.

The Manchester-formed band are currently in the US, supporting their fifth studio album Being Funny in a Foreign Language with their At Their Very Best live shows. These performances have produced myriad viral social media clips, as Healy blurs the lines between “black pill performance art” (his words) and a pop-rock show. Fans have watched as the frontman bites chunks out of a supposedly raw steak, snogs fans from the audience, and feigns masturbation. At a sold-out Kia Forum in Los Angeles, in front of the influencers, the TikTokers, Kendall Jenner and Halsey, Healy continues – mostly – in the same vein.

He steps out onto the stage with drummer George Daniel, guitarist Adam Hann, and bassist Ross MacDonald. They enter what is an objectively astonishing piece of set design – an enormous cross-section of a house, complete with chairs, lamps, televisions and bookcases – though there are drawbacks for those seated in the wings, who must now watch the band through open window panes. Healy acknowledges this when he tells off a rowdy fan: “S**** seats anyway.”

The band begin with songs from Being Funny in a Foreign Language , loosening up the audience with the poppy, disco grooves of “Happiness” and “I’m in Love with You”. Yet it’s the band’s slower, shoegazey tracks that take on a colossal new weight. “About You” is a genuine tear-jerker, as Healy’s voice, always raw with emotion, sounds more finely tuned than ever.

Then it’s into the antics. Healy chuffs on cigarettes and swigs at several flasks before diving into a crotch-rubbing interval set to violins. The fans are screaming, but they’re not sure why: what’s this supposed to mean? A few side-eyes are exchanged between friends; some weary “Oh Matty”s are uttered. Fans have come to expect this behaviour.

“I see a lot of signs from people telling me to kiss them,” Healy observes. Cue more screaming. When performing “Robbers”, the band’s dolorous hit from 2013, Healy has taken to pulling a crowd member on stage and kissing them passionately. Given the discourse surrounding power imbalances in artist-fan relationships, these stunts seem ill-thought-out at best, and deeply problematic at worst. Tonight, though, there’ll be no such endeavours: “No one’s coming on stage tonight,” Healy tells the crowd. “Tonight is all about me.”

Boy, does he mean it. “What does it mean to be a liberal man?” he asks, during one of several rambling conversations with the crowd. “If I’m not doing this, I’m watching s*** and I’m w***ing.” There’s a supporting cast in the Matty Healy show, though. Backing vocalist Polly Money and saxophonist John Waugh lift each tune to soaring heights, before Phoebe Bridgers makes her cameo for a typically sotto voce rendition of The 1975’s “Milk”. Finally, “Robbers” arrives, and Healy makes a beeline for MacDonald, who finds himself locking lips with his bandmate.

Given the audience reactions, and headlines, generated by Healy’s behaviour, it seems unlikely that he’ll dial it down any time soon. He loves attention, that much is clear. But it’s a genuine shame when such behaviour distracts from a band at the peak of their artistic powers. As the tour’s title suggests, The 1975 really are better than ever.

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A glass of whiskey in one hand, a cigarette in the other.

Other than a few aimless rambles between sets, British indie-pop-rock frontman Matt Healy’s message was clear: The 1975 is no less relevant in 2023 than they were in 2013 and the band’s performance at Madison Square Garden was a testament to their continued musical gifts.

Fans poured in with cult-like rage for a Tuesday night, some bearing rectangular tattoos of the band’s album cover, others still half-dressed in work clothes, taking no chance of missing the man who teased a “indefinite hiatus” after they wrap their ‘Still… At Their Very Best’ tour .

The crowd – a hodgepodge of teenage girls, married couples, and some likely single wannabe-groupies – was certainly buzzing. Healy’s closest followers live for his controversies. There was his fervent fling with Taylor Swift over the summer, and then a social media reckoning over offensive podcast remarks . Not to mention, his history of pulling fans on stage for a slobbery smooch (he skipped the make-out sessions for this show).

But, nothing lasts forever, as Healy has taught us. Attention quickly turned to the opener, rising star Dora Jar. The 27-year-old has an celestial, airy voice that melts down arena. Yet, her stage presence couldn’t be further from ghostly. You could hear a pin drop as she breathed into the microphone and sang like the calm before a storm.

That storm was Healy, banging through a door and grabbing his guitar, much to the excitement of the roaring crowd. He glided around the floor effortlessly – an unpretentious set designed like an unfinished bachelor pad loft complete with sporadically placed furniture and a spiral staircase to nowhere. Lead guitarist Adam Hann, bass player Ross MacDonald, and drummer George Daniel, took their places.

Healy and co. opened with a hit from their fourth studio album, “The 1975.” The eponymous song drew its lyrics from a speech given by environmental activist, Greta Thunberg, on civil disobedience. “Looking for Somebody to Love” played like a masterpiece; commanding and confident. The crowd then cheered for “Part of the Band,” a playful rock serenade broken up by an epic saxophone interlude. It was impossible to resist chiming along for “You Look So Cool” before Healy took down the volume and brought on an unexpected guest.

Everyone fell silent watching Healy’s 71-year-old father, Tim, step onto the stage. The retired English actor settled right in, hardly as impressed with himself as the crowd was, and began singing “All I Need to Hear” (with enough bravado to humble his own singer son). The slow jam was an unexpected turn from the punkier side of the evening, playing like a desperate love song with romantic lyrics “Cause it all means nothing, my dear If I can’t be holding you near” sticking in your ear. Outstretched arms from the crowd waved shining lights for the surprise guest.

But the show was not over. Spotlight turned back to what appeared to be Healy, but was actually a replica of his naked body stretched out on a turf platform on the other side of the arena. An eerie piano melody reverberated through the Garden as the real Healy rose through the platform to lay intimately beside his doppelgänger. The whole scene looked like something out of a dream – or nightmare – or psychedelic trip.

Healy disappeared through the grass and then reappeared, this time, with his guitar to sing “Be My Mistake.” A montage of fast-paced clips ran across the screen – TikTok’s, YouTube vids, and of course, outlandish tweets about the Proud Boys and Florida. The singer has not been shy expressing his political views, specifically his abomination of far right-wing content.

As the groove faded, the rockstar rolled into his final stunt of the night – what appeared at first to be a genuine apology for some of his mystifying antics. “I think it’s important to take inventory of yourself,” Healy shouted between swigs. “I apologize to those people and I pledge to be better moving forward.” He made a snuffy note about not being taken too literally, before adding, “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to better yourself…” as he made his impassioned plea, an ad for the popular online therapy service, Better Help, was projected behind him with the message “75% off your first session. Use the code Sorry75.”

And in classic Matt Healy-fashion, it was all an act. “I’m only joking,” the singer cackled, before the screen wiped away. Healy continued unfazed, jerking his head up-and-down to rock out to the night’s final anthems, “I love it if we made it,” and “People.” The lights flashed off at 10:30, and The 1975 dropped their instruments as if to say, we don’t need to impress anyone. Why? Because they’re still… at their very best.

Final verdict

If you’re considering buying tickets to one of their final shows, do so now. The set is an angsty, ethereal mind trip, staging is top-notch, and Healy’s shock factor does not disappoint. Ticket prices won’t break the bank either (the vodka lemonade and sweatshirt cost more than my seats).

In fact, some of them are only $6 before fees on Vivid Seats.

Yes, really.

Still on the fence? Don’t forget that the band has no indication of when they will be back on stage.

The 1975 tour schedule

You can find tickets for all nine upcoming “Still…At Their Very Best” concerts  right here .

(Note: The New York Post confirmed all above prices at the publication time. All prices are in US dollars, subject to fluctuation and include additional fees at checkout .)

Vivid Seats is a verified secondary market ticketing platform, and prices may be higher or lower than face value, depending on demand. 

They offer a 100% buyer guarantee that states your transaction will be safe and secure and your tickets will be delivered prior to the event.

iHeart Radio ALTer Ego Festival

On Saturday, Jan. 13, The 1975 will headline at Anaheim’s Honda Center along with some of the biggest names in the game for the annual one-day rock fest.

Just a few of the acts on the star-studded bill include Paramore , The Black Keys , Thirty Seconds To Mars , Sum 41 and Yellowcard.

Need tix ASAP?

You can grab them here .

The 1975 set list

For a closer look at all the music that the band performed at MSG on Tuesday, Nov. 14, here’s their set list, courtesy of Set List FM :

01.) “The 1975 (BFIAFL)” 02.) “Looking for Somebody (to Love)” 03.) “Happiness” 04.) “Part of the Band” 05.) “Sincerity Is Scary” 06.) “Oh Caroline” 07.) “I’m in Love With You” 08.) “A Change of Heart” 09.) “An Encounter” 10.) “Robbers” 11.) “All I Need to Hear” (with Tim Healy on vocals) 12.) “You”

13.) “About You” (with Carly Holt) Matty’s Nightmare

14.) “Consumption” 15.) “Be My Mistake” (Acoustic; Matty solo on B-Stage) 16.) “Streaming”

17.) “Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America” (Duet with Polly Money) Still… At Their Very Best

18.) “If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)” 19.) “TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME” 20.) “Heart Out” 21.) “It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You)” 22.) “The Sound” 23.) “Somebody Else” 24.) “Chocolate” 25.) “Love It If We Made It” 26.) “Sex” 27.) “Give Yourself a Try” 28.) “People”

Huge concert tours in 2023-24

Amped up for live shows but don’t know who’s on the road?

Well, here are just five massive tours that might strike your fancy these next few months.

•  Jonas Brothers

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The 1975 prove they’re some of the best performers on the planet with homecoming gig at the AO Arena

'Still at their very best' — too right.

Last night, The 1975 reminded Manchester and fans all over that they’re some of the very best performers on the planet when it comes to music right now, it’s that simple.

Not hyperbole, just an honest opinion from a fan who’s seen them multiple times now and has only seen them get bigger and better each time, not to mention become more impressive as all-round entertainers.

Managing to get a standing ticket to the first of their two packed-out nights at the AO Arena , almost exactly a year on from seeing them from the seated section in 2023, it’s fair to say that being in amongst it certainly played its part in somehow topping the previous and already unbelievable gig.

Dancing around like prats, shaking our knees and screaming our heads off; jumping up and down, and drinking in every drop of the serotonin-soaked atmosphere, we can’t remember many other shows that have genuinely got better with each second that passed — and it all started with an amazing support act.

Late last year, The Manc Audio had the pleasure of going along to see ever-rising Dirty Hit labelmates, The Japanese House, at New Century Hall where Amber Bain’s vocals nearly had us in tears and Saturday evening was no different.

Even in the space of just a couple of songs — the majority of which 1975 fans know pretty well too given how close the two acts are and certainly more than most supports usually enjoy the pleasure of when playing huge tours like this — we could fully envisage them headlining this arena themselves.

While The Japanese House is technically just Bain and her touring band, the record company’s influences, paired with production from Matty Healy himself and drummer George Daniel means that there are 1975 notes all over their sound, so it’s no surprise the two dovetail so well on a billing.

We were a bit gutted we didn’t get to see him come out and sing his part on ‘Sunshine Baby’ for their final song, but you can’t win ’em all. A very, very special singer-songwriter you should all be paying very close attention to.

As for the headliners themselves, while much of the set and stage design has remained pretty much the same from last year, the biggest difference right from the off was that Healy was on top form in every sense of the word, having played the previous AO Arena gig hopped up on Lemsip and red wine .

We didn’t think his voice sounded too far from its best in 2023 anyway, but it’s safe to say that everyone benefitted from him looking visibly healthier and perhaps a little less tipsy than last time, and the well-delivered vocals from minute one made the super cinematic opening credits feel even more considered.

And while there were plenty more of those movie-like scripted moments throughout the show and clever uses of the set (we’re not going to spoil too much), this latest iteration of the live set still has the same gorgeous aesthetic but now feels like just the right amount of abstract.

That being said, we don’t think anyone was expecting to see the Marmite frontman suddenly appear from a platform rising out of the ground and start singing the stripped-down version of ‘I Like America’ to a naked waxwork of himself…

But this was all part of what made the performance special last time and again last night. It isn’t just the joy of kicking the crowd off with those 80s-infused bangers they’re so good at like ‘Looking For Somebody to Love’ and ‘It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You)’ — it’s all the other stuff around it.

The fact of the matter is, we have genuinely never seen shows like the kind that The 1975 write; they swing from well-rehearsed and thought-provoking to hugging your mate as you sway together before the whole arena suddenly turns into one big dancefloor and you’re just partying again. It’s seamless.

It might not be Pink doing a dozen backflips as she flies across the air in a harness at Bolton Stadium with loads of pyros and dance routines (though we did get the Love It We Made It choreography, back by popular demand), but these lot have come a long way from just drinking wine and smoking fags as they play the hits. It definitely feels like the rest of the band all had their hero moments this time too.

From saxophonist John Waugh shining in multiple spotlighted moments, Healy introducing bassist Ross MacDonald to the “ladies, especially” and more, they all had their hero moments. A special shout-out to the truly wonderful session player Polly Mooney as well, who took the lead on ‘Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America’ and smashed her ‘About You’ bridge. She’s far from just a backing player, believe us.

Playing a little something from every era as we hoped they would, adding in a few older tracks into the setlist compared to the previous tour, there weren’t many moments as happiness-inducing as bouncing around to ‘If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)’, ‘The Sound’ and, well, ‘Happiness’. Pure euphoria.

There was also plenty of catharsis in there too, as we also got cult classics like ‘Robbers’ and ‘I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)’, as well as probably the saddest and yet still the funkiest slow jam in ‘Somebody Else’.

We have no shame in admitting we welled up during a few, but you’ll just have to see which ones may or may not set you off.

As alluded to, there are plenty of surprises in store over the course of the 26-track and roughly two-and-a-half-hour set, and we also enjoyed the Wilmslow group giving a nod to their old stomping grounds like Satan’s Hollow and Deaf Institute where they headed for the afterparty. They’re local lads as far as we’re concerned.

• Sampha at Aviva Studios, Manchester – music master wows in-the-round
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For the last two tours or so now, Healy has somewhat flippantly referred to The 1975 as “the best band in the world” up on stage and while being a bit cocky and braggadocious is far from new territory for the self-proclaimed nepo baby, we’re starting to take that claim more seriously each time.

The 34-year-old has been a controversial figure in music for a good long while now and understandably so — he certainly hasn’t always hit the mark as a ‘character’ and sometimes says things we don’t agree with, whether sardonic or not — but what it comes down to is him being a showman first and foremost.

Better still, he took a lot of the recent criticism for his comments and on-stage antics and pivoted to write almost all of it into this new show in a genuinely interesting way. Finding rockstars that have just as much self-awareness as they do self-obsession is pretty rare but, above everything else, the group as a whole have created a truly incredible live experience. On their art alone, they’re up there with the best.

For anyone going along to night two of The 1975’s Manchester homecoming at the AO Arena this Sunday, if the band bring even half of the energy and charisma that they did one night one, you’ll be in for an absolute treat and we’ll jump at every chance we get to see them again – so should you.

For all the latest news, events and goings on in Greater Manchester,  subscribe to The Manc newsletter HERE .

Featured Images — The Manc Group

Stockport and its street party scene seem to be thriving at the moment and now Manchester’s increasingly popular Block Party is getting involved too.

We’ve all seen how SK1 Records and their street parties have taken off over the past year or so, so it only makes sense for Block Party to team up with them and others to bring their tried and tested format to another Greater Manchester borough this summer.

No, we don’t care how many times you repeat it, it isn’t Cheshire and hasn’t been for ages.

But back to the matter at hand, Block Party – who have already seen great success over at Piccadilly Trading Estate with the help of Manc brewers Cloudwater, Track, Balance and Sureshot – are set to deliver a day of music entertainment, food, bevs drink and fun for all the family.

Aptly named ‘Stock Party’ (some things just line up perfectly), the latest street party will be landing on the historic Underbank in collaboration with all their usual partners as well as local beer experts Robinsons Brewery and Runaway, as well as Michelin-recognised Where The Light Gets and many more.

Being brought to life with the help of Stockport’s Business Improvement District (BID), Totally Stockport and Stockport Council as part of the growing ‘Old Town’ revival moment, they’re set to deliver a day of music entertainment, food & drink and family activities around the town centre.

‘ Robbies’ Brewery on Lower Hillgate will be home to the main festival square and bar, pouring the freshest beers from each of the breweries, with tunes being pumped out onto the street by SK1 Records and a special DJ set curated by Bohemian Arts Club to ensure a proper party atmosphere.

For those who prefer a nice pinot noir, Isca will be serving up a selection of their natural wines; plus Where The Light Gets In will be serving up BBQ and Honest Crust – one of the best pizza places anywhere in Greater Manchester – will be serving up slices… of heaven, we mean.

It doesn’t stop there – not even close…

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Although we can promise plenty of dancing and footfall, Underbank will also be lined with tables and chairs enabling festival-goers to enjoy an alfresco beer from a five-tap van located outside Rare Mags, while Yellowhammer pottery and bakery will see visitors can build their own tankard in a special one-off.

There are even more offerings food and drink-wise too, with popular local bars Spinn Off and Cracked Actor, Cafe San Juan and Marley’s Tacos all serving up street food and pints for you to gulp down in the sunshine (fingers crossed).

Head just a few metres over the road and you’ll also find Stockport’s oldest and newly restored White Lion pub hosting an Old Town General Store DJ set and tap takeover, with Ginger’s Ice Cream Emporium on hand serving up their artisan ice cream. As if things couldn’t get any more summery.

Best of all, you don’t have to wait too long as Stock Party is happening on 20 July, lasting from 12-9pm and is completely free entry. You can bank on us being there and dancing along the cobbles until dusk. See you in SK next month!

Featured Images — Block Party (supplied)

A band fronted by Liam Gallagher’s son have announced a headline gig at one of Manchester’s most iconic music venues.

In the same week that his old man has been playing a run of sold-out – and absolutely biblical, if we do say so ourselves – shows at Manchester ‘s newest live entertainment arena, Co-op Live , Gene Gallagher and his band, Villanelle, have just announced their debut UK headline tour, and tickets are going on sale in a couple of days time.

The upcoming indie rock quartet is formed earlier this year by Liam Gallagher ‘s youngest son, who takes on the role of lead vocalist and guitarist.

Gene’s joined by Ben Taylor on guitar, bassist Jack Schiavo, and Andrew Richmond on drums.

The four-piece is yet to actually release any music formally, but Gene says he’s been writing songs for as long “as he can remember”, and they’re already making waves.

The lads are currently introducing themselves in the biggest way possible by opening for LG himself on his ongoing ‘Definitely Maybe: 30 Years’ tour… but as that run of shows nears an end, Villanelle are now preparing to step out on their own for the first time ever.

They’ll be taking to the stage at some legendary smaller venues all across the UK on their debut headline tour.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by VILLANELLE (@villanellemusic)

They’ve already played a handful of gigs at places such as renowned London rock ‘n’ roll pub, The Marquis, and beloved Manchester venue, Band On The Wall , but this is the first time they’ll be heading out on tour.

And of course they’ll be coming back to visit our city .

Manchester music fans curious to hear what the rising band’s sound is all about will be able to head on down to Night & Day Cafe later this year on 22 November and see for themselves.

Villanelle – UK Tour Dates 2024

• 19 November – Stereo (Glasgow)
• 20 November – The Grove (Newcastle)
• 22 November – Night & Day Cafe (Manchester)
• 23 November – Oslo (London)
• 24 November – Mama Roux’s (Birmingham)
• 26 November – Dareshack (Bristol)
• 27 November – The Bodega (Nottingham)
• 28 November – Oslo (London)

Tickets to the UK tour dates – including Manchester – are going on sale later this week.

Anyone looking to grab tickets to the Manchester gig at Night & Day Cafe on 22 November will be able to get their hands on them when they go on general sale this Friday (21 June) at 9am.

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Grab tickets when they go on sale here .

Featured Image – Freya Barber ( via Villanelle on Instagram )

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The 1975 review – a tale of two halves packed with raw meat and talent

Brighton Centre Matty Healy plays the role of the drunk and arrogant rockstar in the first act’s bizarre show-within-a show – before the second act morphs into a tsunami of hits

M atty Healy is chewing on a slab of raw steak. Minutes later, after doing push-ups while images of Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak and Margaret Thatcher flash on screens, he crawls into an old rear-projection television and the stage goes black, thus concluding act one of the first UK date of a tour they’ve titled The 1975: At Their Very Best.

Fans with Twitter or TikTok will already be aware of Healy’s recent on-stage antics . Since the band’s tour began in the US last year, clips of the 33-year-old have gone viral: showing him berating security via Auto-Tune, snogging various fans and complaining about menthol cigarettes being thrown on stage. It’s the sort of memeable behaviour one has come to expect from the always-online Healy who, over the last decade, has become one of music’s most compulsively watchable provocateurs thanks to his inescapable charisma, open-mouthed honesty and his band’s self-aware and sparkling 80s pop-rock.

Still, while such virality is surely great for engagement – probably pleasing to the band’s label – it has perhaps overshadowed what might be one of the most inventive, bizarre and entertaining arena shows in recent memory. Split into two distinct acts, the band has done away with the often awkward and well-rehearsed dance between artist and fans where new material is slotted somewhere between the hits. Instead, the first 75 minutes of the show is material almost entirely from the band’s latest album, Being Funny in a Foreign Language , delivered as a conceptual show-within-a-show that feels constructed to test the audience’s patience and their expectations about the nature of pop shows.

Set against a meticulously crafted set designed to look like the inside of a house, it’s presented as if Healy and his band are recording a TV special: there is even an interlude where they halt the show in order to re-do a take of a song, movie clapper and all. Staggering around the stage, Healy is loose-hipped and bendy, a bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other as he mumbles to the audience between songs. The role being played here – drunk and arrogant rockstar – clearly aligns with the thematic concerns of Being Funny in a Foreign Language, which explores the dichotomies of modern masculinity with all its fragility and toxicity: “Men are confused,” Healy says at one point, images of Andrew Tate and Prince Andrew flashing on the screens, before proceeding to grope at himself.

It would be annoying if songs weren’t so kinetic and expansive: Oh Caroline is a swirl of contradictions, a piano glissando clashing with Healy’s gravelly and emotionally wrought vocals. The open Laurel Canyon strum of I’m in Love With You becomes hunched and introverted as whirring synths go off like an alarm. The smoky end-of-the-night smoothness of All I Need to Hear, which Healy performs with his back to the crowd, is distorted by guitars. And the harmonies of When We Are Together feel like they’re enveloping you in their spine-tingling beauty.

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Then, following the meat-eating and television exit, the band return to the stage for the show’s second act. “We just played about an hour of music that came out about eight weeks ago and none of you left,” Healy says. “Now let’s get into business.”

What follows is a tsunami of hits. The shimmying If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know) feels like a refreshing glass of water after the previous hour, the crowd jumping like they’re at a trampoline park as Healy morphs from awkward incel into competent pop heartthrob. Somebody Else, with its glassy synths and chugging beats, becomes the singalong of the night. There’s a tiny detour as Healy throws his support behind striking workers (“Being anti-Tory is not a hot take,” he says when the crowd cheers), before an energetic performance of The Sound.

Of course, at just over two hours long, and given its perhaps alienating first half, this show may prove divisive for some. But whether you see the bewildering two-act structure as innovative, or simply an exercise in trolling, may supply the truth behind the tour’s name: you certainly wouldn’t get this from anyone else.

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The 1975 have revealed their ‘At Their Very Best’ live show in North America

• By Finlay Holden
• Fri 4th November, 2022

The 1975 have kicked off their new ‘At Their Very Best’ tour in North America, where they debuted three new album tracks within an elaborate stage set-up.

The first appearance of their reworked live concert arrived at Uncasville’s Mohegan Sun Arena. BLACKSTARKIDS were featured as the opening support, offering a quick 8-track set before The 1975 took to the stage at 8:30 pm; a two-tiered stage set was revealed, with the elaborate backdrop imitating the inside of a house.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Milo (@1975antichrist)

The band began with songs from their fifth number-one album, ‘ Being Funny in a Foreign Language ’, which Dork’s 5-star review described as, “a brilliant edit of everything that came before, cast in the self-realisation and not-so-quiet confidence of just how good they can be”.

The 11-track LP was played in order, with ‘Looking for Somebody (To Love)’ swapping position with ‘Happiness’. ‘Wintering’ and ‘Human Too’ were replaced with ‘Roadkill’, ‘Fallingforyou’, and a piano rendition of ‘I Like America & America Likes Me’. The Connecticut performance offered the live debut of ‘ Being Funny in a Foreign Language ’s ‘The 1975’, ‘About You’, and ‘When We Are Together’.

The band went on to deliver 11 further hits from across their discography – the full setlist for The 1975 ’s Connecticut show reads as below:

Being Funny in a Foreign Language 1. The 1975 (Live debut) 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. Roadkill 9. Fallingforyou 10. I Like America & America Likes Me (BFIAFL Version) 11. About You (Live debut) 12. When We Are Together (Live debut)

The 1975 At Their Very Best 13. If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know) 14. Chocolate 15. It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You) 16. Paris 17. An Encounter 18. Robbers 19. Somebody Else 20. Love It If We Made It 21. The Sound 22. Sex 23. Give Yourself a Try

The 1975 will tour North America for the remainder of 2022, returning to the UK for their hometown headline shows in January 2023 – tickets are available here . They have also been confirmed as headliners for Glasgow’s TRNSMT Festival next July.

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Taylor Swift Live in London: The Eras Tour Sets a New Bar for Stadium Shows

By Will Richards

Will Richards

When  Taylor Swift  released her soft, folky pair of 2020 lockdown albums –  Folklore  and  Evermore  – it was reasonable to think she was slowly exiting her maximalist pop star phase and settling into her thirties with less yearning for the spotlight.

Instead, in the four years since the albums’ release, she has put out six more albums, including four as part of an ongoing re-recording series, and become more of an omnipresent cultural force than ever before.

With the most dedicated and rabid fanbase on earth behind her, Swift’s mantra of late has been that more is better, and it’s served her both for better and for worse. On the downside, it bloated her 11 th  studio album,  The Tortured Poets Department , to an unnecessary 31 songs, but it’s also led her to The Eras Tour , one of the decade’s biggest cultural moments so far.

For  Folklore  and  Evermore , Swift sits atop a mossy cabin, while the new  Tortured Poets Department  section sees her go full Broadway, reanimated from a slumber by her effervescent backing dancers – dressed as mimes – before album highlight “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.”

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As well as a marvel of songwriting and creativity, The Eras Tour is also astonishing for Swift’s pure stamina. Though she exits the stage for costume changes in between each era, she is rarely out of view for more than a minute at a time across the three-and-a-half hour show, before popping up and gliding her way across the huge stage and walkways again, never letting her voice suffer as a result. A swarm of dancers surround her at all times, inhabiting her past selves excellently: it makes for a brilliant feat of acting as well as live performance.

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Prince William dancing to Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off’ at the Eras Tour in London. pic.twitter.com/yBzm8mbULF — Pop Base (@PopBase) June 22, 2024

By design, very little about The Eras Tour is casual though. No artist alive has the ability to dive so deep into their own lore and pull it off on such a massive scale. With countless easter eggs, a wonderful and warming culture of outfit creation, and stage production on a scale rarely seen, the tour is a cultural behemoth just like Swift. It’s hard to tell yet whether these shows will mark the end of Swift’s imperial, ubiquitous phase, but whether she retreats into the shadows now or not, this will surely go down as the apex of her startling career.

Taylor Swift taking a selfie with Prince William and his children. pic.twitter.com/MaMLiauHC0 — Pop Base (@PopBase) June 22, 2024

This review originally published on Rolling Stone UK .

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How Did We Learn to Talk? We Can’t Say for Sure.

In “The Language Puzzle,” the archaeologist Steven Mithen asks exactly how our species started speaking.

By Dennis Duncan

Dennis Duncan is the author of “Index, A History of the.”

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THE LANGUAGE PUZZLE: Piecing Together the Six-Million-Year Story of How Words Evolved , by Steven Mithen

If you stand on the rock of Edinburgh Castle on a clear day and look due north toward the Firth of Forth, you can make out the small island of Inchkeith, about three miles out to sea. It was to this island, in 1493, that James IV banished two infant children, with only a mute nurse for company, to be raised in silent isolation. The king hoped that, when the children came of age, this experiment would reveal the original, Edenic language of Adam and Eve, uncontaminated by modern chatter.

The results, let’s say, were inconclusive. An early historian, writing in Scots, offers contemporary gossip — “some sayis they spak goode hebrew” — before quickly disavowing any firm opinion on the matter.

This is just one of several near-identical language deprivation experiments reportedly carried out by various despotic rulers over the centuries. Many of these stories are probably apocryphal, but they point to an ongoing curiosity that is very real. Where did language first come from, and what was the first language like? These questions are addressed by archaeologist Steven Mithen in “The Language Puzzle.”

Speculation on the matter was so rife, and often so wild, that on March 8, 1866, the Société de Linguistique de Paris issued a set of statutes which notably declared that they would no longer enter into any communication concerning the origins of language. This ban has been credited with putting an ancient field of inquiry into hibernation for over a century — an exaggeration, perhaps, but one that carries a germ of truth.

Many scholars had come to realize that the question of how language had evolved was itself so inherently complex, and crossed so many of the specialist disciplines into which academia divides itself, that anyone claiming to have the answer was likely to be a quack.

Since the end of the last century, however, we have begun to see serious, multiple-component approaches to the topic that draw together evidence from different branches of learning. Mithen has a useful metaphor for the way in which the question must be tackled: The puzzle in his title is a jigsaw. The picture we are after, of language evolution, will only reveal itself if we place all the different pieces in the right configuration, bringing together evidence from linguistics, archaeology, anthropology, genetics, neuroscience, psychology and ethology (the science of animal behavior).

What King James didn’t realize — but what should seem obvious to us in a post-Darwin world — is that language did not appear fully formed as one item from a small menu of available options. “Fully modern language,” as Mithen calls it, is the endpoint of an evolutionary process that stretches back to the lip-smacks, pant-hoots and kiss-squeaks of chimpanzees and other primates. Along the way, it acquires the possibility of combining multiple noises into phrases, the capacities to represent things that are not immediately present and to use metaphor.

At the same time, developments in the vocal tract allowed for a vastly increased palette of potential sounds. English uses 44 distinct phonemes; the Taa language of Botswana has 144.

A key piece of Mithen’s jigsaw is the divergence of hominids and chimpanzees. Fossil evidence of variations in brain size and vocal tract shape between Homo sapiens, Neanderthal man, Homo erectus and so on down the family tree allows for the speculative dating of some of those linguistic leaps. Mithen is especially good at describing humankind’s differentiation and migration over the last three million years, and this early chapter is a tour de force of terse, fascinating clarity.

The same cannot be said of all of them, unfortunately. In Mithen’s jigsaw there are a lot of specialist disciplines that necessarily need to be unpacked for the general reader. Sometimes, however, he provides more detail than we subsequently need. “The Language Puzzle” contains many memorable passages, but I will struggle to recall exactly how nucleotides model proteins, or the precise distinctions between the hand tools of the Lower Paleolithic period.

Occasionally, one senses that the puzzle pieces have been clipped slightly or jammed in to fit the picture; many of these disciplines have not settled into consensus to quite the extent that the author suggests.

Take the idea of sound symbolism, the proposition that certain sounds in words have a non-arbitrary relationship to their meaning: the onomatopoeia. Certainly this idea, discredited for most of the 20th century, now has a significant body of well-evidenced support. Nevertheless, if one were to ask a straw poll of academic linguists how seriously they take sound symbolism, one would find that the matter is by no means as unanimously resolved as Mithen needs it to be. But by and large, he is an honest commentator.

Mithen is not averse to taking sides in debates that are still open. Phrases like “I am aligned with” or “in my opinion” pepper the text. As a consequence, the picture revealed in the final chapter is only a hypothetical one — “my best shot,” as Mithen puts it. Nevertheless, it is a remarkable, vivid set piece: a montage that runs from the barks and coos of forest-dwelling primates to the grammatical written language you are reading now.

No doubt, aspects of Mithen’s picture will need to be redrawn. It is, by his own admission, only the snapshot of a moment in a debate that will continue as the underlying sciences come into greater definition. Thankfully, this time the learned societies of Paris will not forbid the discussion from continuing.

THE LANGUAGE PUZZLE : Piecing Together the Six-Million-Year Story of How Words Evolved | By Steven Mithen | Basic Books | 534 pp. | $36

New Times, New Thinking.

Taylor Swift’s Eras tour conquers London

At Wembley Stadium, the pop star presented a kaleidoscopic, whiplash-inducing spectacle that passed by in a blur.

By Anna Leszkiewicz

Taylor Swift had performed 103 shows in 36 cities before her Eras tour came to Wembley Stadium in London on 21 June. Already on the round for a year, three months and four days, Swift’s three-and-a-half hour set list includes more than 40 songs from her eleven albums, or “eras” (and since the tour started, she has played almost 200 “surprise” songs not on the official list). The tour has sold more than 4.3 million tickets worldwide, generating over $1bn in sales. It’s also been made into a concert film that took $267m at the US box office.

The sheer scale of the event is difficult to comprehend, not just in the abstract but in person. The tour’s first UK dates in Edinburgh saw the city overrun by hundreds of thousands fans. Every bar blared her music and offered free cocktails, every shop contained a sad sign in the window: “Sorry, we are sold out of Taylor Swift merch :( ”. On every corner, you’d see them: girls in sparkly dresses and tour sweatshirts. Even women in ordinary-seeming outfits carried coded messages. The lumpy cable-knit cardigan bought from her official store, the sweater embroidered with her birth year (and album title) 1989, the shirts emblazoned with fragments of lyrics (“crying at the gym” or “pathological people pleaser”). On the way to the venue, closed down streets were trodden by a parade of white cowboy boots. Even a city as big as London can feel overwhelmed by the fandom. At Wembley, the 90,000 fans danced to obscure hits on Olympic Way on the way to the stadium.

But none of this compares to the immensity of the event on stage: a kaleidoscopic, whiplash-inducing spectacle that passes by in a blur, and isn’t anywhere near as exhausting as it should be. Swift rises through the stage surrounded by dancers to a fragment from her euphoric, love-struck album Lover , and after the roar of the crowd has subsided ever so slightly, she introduces herself with a knowingly understated, “Oh, hi!” before launching into one of her most popular pop hits, “Cruel Summer”, a rush of blood to the head with a scream-along bridge. (“Does anyone here know happen to know the words?” she asks. “Prove it!”) It’s the kind of indestructible, irresistible song that most artists would save for the encore, but Swift tosses it out early, with a wink.

It sets the bar high for the remaining hours, which careen wildly between genres and tones from her earliest sweet country ballads of first heartbreak to the snarling hip-hop-inspired revenge bangers of Reputation ; the bulletproof Max Martin-produced pop that topped charts in the early 2010s to the intricate, defiantly mellow indie of her pandemic albums Folklore and Evermore . (This makes for some startling transitions: the sparkling final notes of the twee and tweenage love song “Enchanted” segues into the growling bass notes of one of her most confrontational, rap-adjacent songs, “Ready for It…?”.) There are, pyrotechnics, light displays, confetti explosions; Swift disappears and reappears on stage in clouds of silks or explosions of colour, seamlessly changing between glittering bodysuits, floaty dresses and a now famous one-legged black catsuit adorned with a shining red snake.

The clever conceit of the Eras tour is that it appeals to all of Swift’s wide fanbase, who advocate for their favourite albums fiercely. Still, there are collective highlights: “Cruel Summer” has caused a responses from crowds that register on the Richter scale (really). Heard live, the furious energy of Reputation ’s “Look What You Made Me Do” and “Ready for It” are impossible to deny. Her most perfect pop songs, 1989 ’s “Style” and “Wildest Dreams”, sound even sleeker and more timeless than they did a decade ago. Her oldest songs, such as “Fearless” and “You Belong with Me”, generate intense bursts of emotion because of just how long the crowd have been singing them: the countless 30-something women who sang the lyrics “Been here all along/So why can’t you see/You belong with me?” alone in their teenage bedrooms. The extended, ten-minute-long version of the song that is often considered her masterpiece, “All Too Well”, retains all its emotional complexity, autumn leaves fluttering down from the sky on cue. The exhilarating glitter explosion of “Karma” is a suitably climactic final song. And the introduction of her 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department , adds a tricksy, meta element, as she performs songs written during the first leg of the tour itself, including “I Can Do It with a Broken Heart”, in which she brags about “hitting my marks” despite being “miserable… and no one even knows!” (She performs this after being forced, sulkily, into a glittery tuxedo by her dancers.)

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Swift proves herself not just an inexhaustible performer but a talented actress, as she moves from yearning to rageful to exultant and back, and feigns surprise and awe, night after night, at the intensity of the crowd’s reactions. She seeks out the cameras that rotate around her stages with practiced ease. She is most comfortable in a posture of high camp, whether flashing faux-coy smiles, luxuriating in overdramatic eyerolls, or throwing herself into theatrical Wicked Witch of the West arm movements.

The risk of a concert this slick, this precisely choreographed, this watched and rewatched, with its concrete setlist of songs that are so deeply familiar to its audience, is a loss of spontaneity and intimacy. Swift is something of a type-A performer, and perhaps inevitably for a tour of this scope, this show is more about perfection than messy human interaction. The polished, synthetic production style of her most familiar songs makes them ideal stadium fillers, and they are reproduced strikingly faithfully here: efficient cuts aside, Swift rarely reworks her material into anything novel.

Instead, she finds one concentrated space for surprise and connection: the “acoustic set”, or two surprise songs she sings on acoustic guitar and piano each night, often mixing different songs together. At Wembley, she played on piano her most recent album’s closer, “The Black Dog”, set in a pub in Vauxhall, for the first time, blending it with Red’s “Come Back… Be Here” (“I guess you’re in London today, and I don’t wanna need you this way”) and Midnights’ “Maroon”. On guitar, she mixed “Hits Different” with fan favourite, the rarely performed live “Death by A Thousand Cuts”, known for its much-loved bridge (“I chose these songs because they are two of my favourite bridges I’ve ever written,” she told the crowd. “I’m going to try to put together my two favourite bridges and create a megabridge”). It’s a special moment for thousands in the stadium: when the concert ended, it was this that countless voices could be heard reliving.

After a production so successful and so expansive, its hard to imagine where Taylor Swift can go next. The Eras tour has the feeling of a greatest hits tour, usually reserved for artists at the end of long careers. You get the sense that her audience would bankrupt themselves to watch her sing anything she liked. But having found a way to celebrate each phase of her back catalogue with the fans who each hold a different one dear, how could she ever put on a standard album tour again? It’s possible that in decades to come, music writers will look back at the Eras tour as the peak of Swift mania, the moment the pop star reached the height of her powers. But hers is a crown she won’t give up easily. As she sang at the end of the night on “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart”, with the stadium echoing her words back to her: “Try and come for my job”.

Taylor Swift plays Wembley Stadium in London on 22 and 23 June and 15, 16, 17, 19 and 20 August.

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Lana Del Rey Fenway Park concert delayed 2 hours, fans evacuated

Lana Del Rey fans ran into some bad luck during her concert at Boston's Fenway Park Thursday night.

The singer's sold-out concert was delayed by two hours because of bad weather, Live Nation confirmed to USA TODAY Friday.

The show was delayed due to severe thunderstorms, and fans were evacuated from the field.

Rey, 39, checked in with fans in an Instagram story Thursday night. "They are holding the show off until 9:00 because of wind warnings," she wrote. "See you soon."

USA TODAY has reached out to Rey's reps for comment.

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

In a subsequent video posted on her story, the "Young and Beautiful" singer explained the reason for the delay.

"They just cleared the stage. So every time the lightning strikes, we have to wait 20 minutes. And it just keeps striking," she said. "So what we were hoping for was to fill the room back up by 10 o'clock and at least do an hour-long show. That's what we're hoping for bare minimum."

She continued: "Worst case scenario we reschedule for Saturday so, I don't know, I'm crossing my fingers. And I'm down here with all the girls, just hoping."

Rey eventually took the stage around 10:30 p.m. She played a nearly hour-long set, bringing out guests including Mason Ramsey, Stephen Sanchez and Quavo, the latter for their new collaboration , "Tough." Rey and Quavo first previewed the track on social media Wednesday.

How will Beyoncé, Lana Del Rey and Post Malone 'going country' impact the industry?

The song is the first to be announced from her upcoming country album , "Lasso," which is due out in September.

Rey is set to make appearances at Reading and Leeds festivals in the United Kingdom and Rock en Seine in France later this summer.

Taylor Swift Thrills Cardiff Audience With Ultra-Deep Cuts and a Greeting in Welsh: Concert Review

By Mark Sutherland

Mark Sutherland

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“I spend a lot of my time trying to plan these things,” Taylor Swift said with a grin — and with classic understatement — as she strapped on her acoustic guitar for the “surprise songs” segment of her “Eras” tour stop in Cardiff, Wales. “I like to challenge myself to do different things every night [so] every single show is unique.”

Considering the unprecedented levels of attention the tour has attracted since it kicked off in Glendale, Arizona, 100 shows and over a year ago, this seemed like a bold statement.

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And true to form, Swift went the extra mile to make the Welsh Valleys girls (and boys) feel special: Not only did they get a bounty of surprise songs (more on that in a moment), she greeted them in the country’s native tongue. Welsh is one of the trickier European languages to master but her rendition of “Shwmae, croeso i daith Eras” (“Hi there, welcome to the ‘Eras’ tour”) certainly sounded authentic.

Indeed, some parts are so familiar that the crowd didn’t just sing along to the songs, they spoke along to some of Swift’s song announcements. A few even tried to pull the exact same face as Swift as she said them. When even your facial expressions have their own greatest hits compilation, what can you do to retain an element of the unexpected?

A lot, as it turned out. It’s to Swift’s eternal credit that, despite all the above, seeing the “Eras” tour in the actual flesh remains a mind-blowing, heart-stopping spectacle that feels as fresh as the Welsh mountain air.

Waiting for one’s “Eras” date to come around becomes a game of musical “Deal or No Deal,” as fans hope there will still be plenty of your personal selection of high-value classics from the red side of the board in play by the time you take their seats.

Cardiff definitely got a “deal”: “I Forgot That You Existed,” from “Lover,” was mashed up with “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” from “Reputation,” complete with a hilarious take on the latter’s “I can’t even say it with a straight face” belly laugh — these songs being strongly connected in the popular belief that they are about the Kanye/Kim situation that roiled her world in the late 2010s, though she’s never acknowledged them as such.

And, just when fans were pondering the significance of that intriguing combination, Swift topped it by deftly combining a pair of deep cuts, “I Hate It Here,” from “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology” – a song she has never played live before – with “The Lakes,” a paean to England’s Lake District found on the deluxe version of “Folklore.”

The delirious reaction from the crowd was a tribute not only to the depth of her back catalog but the fans’ commitment to it, but Swift’s genius is in making even the more recognizable elements of this fantastic show seem special.

In fact, Cardiff had a decent claim on being the most distinctive of all the 101 shows on the jaunt so far. This was the first ever Taylor Swift headline show in Wales – although she did appear just down the road in Swansea at a BBC Radio 1 festival in 2018 – and Cardiff is the only city where she’s played for one night only.

That’s not due to any lack of demand. The streets around the Principality Stadium – usually the home of Welsh rugby – were as packed with delirious fans, ticket holders or not, as they ever are on a Six Nations match day.

And nor was it due to an absence of affinity between Swift and the Welsh – after all, she is probably the only international pop superstar to ever reference Wales’ national sport in song, declaring: “You can find me in the pub / We are watching rugby” on “London Boy” and even gave the original Welsh tortured poet, Dylan Thomas, a shout out on her latest album’s title track.

She also discussed her love of the “beautiful Welsh countryside” ahead of “Betty,” while a backing dancer interjected “Ych a fi” (which roughly translates as “disgusting”) during a rollicking “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” and counted to four in Welsh during “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.”

And no wonder. If tickets for the rest of the tour are the proverbial gold dust, ones for the Cardiff one-off date must have been diamond dust. Which meant everyone here was determined to wring every last drop out of the experience.

All around, mothers and daughters or groups of BFFs in classic Swift outfits (the “22” look seems to be the Era of choice for the moms) were in raptures. Tiny children in cowboy hats – whichever Welsh entrepreneur invested in pink Stetsons the last time Beyoncé left town will surely be retiring on the proceeds after tonight – swapped friendship bracelets with cool older girls keen to welcome them into the Swift sorority.

There were a lot of tears – the older Swifties may have been processing emotional trauma but, for some of the younger ones, Swift’s appearance in the same room appeared to have a similar effect to meeting “the real Santa.”

But there was also an enormous amount of joy in a stadium well used to hosting Welsh ecstasy and heartbreak. However well you think you know this set’s twists and turns, nothing can truly prepare you for watching total strangers bust out spontaneous synchronized dance routines during a jubilant “Bejewelled,” or multiple generations of female relatives putting aside concerns over bad language to scream “Fuck the patriarchy!” together during a devastating “All Too Well.”

There were too many onstage highlights to list, but take your pick from a version of “Style” that was as zesty as Swift’s lime green and orange outfit; a rendition of “Look What You Made Me Do” that rocked as hard as opening act Paramore; or a beautifully spooky presentation of “Willow”; as Swift breathed new life into even the most recognizable corners of the setlist, ensuring every single song earned its set piece status.

Meanwhile, the newest Era – “The Tortured Poets Department” – is already one of the set’s strongest. Swift smiled as she seemed to levitate above her dancers on a spinning glass block during an intense “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me” and, with delicious irony, threw herself completely into “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” complete with a preceding silent movie-style skit as her dancers cajoled her into getting dressed and getting back out there.

That song deals with her dancing through the heartbreak on earlier parts of the “Eras” tour but, tonight, Swift’s winning grinning felt authentically, wonderfully real, right down to her pronunciation of “Diolch o galon” (“Thank you from the heart”) as she finished the set.

Cardiff was also perhaps the only show on this leg of the tour to take place indoors. The stadium’s retractable roof – designed to protect Welsh rugby flair from the equally unpredictable local weather – was closed, despite it being possibly the only day of this typically soggy U.K. summer when it wasn’t raining outside.

Hayley Williams made it clear she’s happy to be in the unusual role of warm-up act rather than main attraction – “If you’re not ready at the end of this 45 minutes, we have failed!” – but her look of delight as the crowd bellowed the first chorus of “Still Into You” showed Paramore are much more than that.

A high-octane set of bangers followed, including “Aint’ It Fun”, “This Is Why” and “Misery Business” (the latter reintroduced to the set at Swift’s request), taking anyone unfamiliar with the band on the same journey as Williams’ T-shirt, which read: “Try It – You’ll Like It.”

The “Eras” may now be so big that it practically has its own time zone, its own Gross Domestic Product and its own unique gravitational pull. But, when you’re actually there, every moment from the opening “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince” to the climactic “Karma” remains gloriously spontaneous and, yes, unique. Rest assured, you have never seen anything like this before, even if you think you have.

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