Having been a fan of The 1975 for years, I was very excited to be finally seeing them in concert at Manchester Arena, on 28th February 2020. Especially exciting, I had the best seats that I’d ever had in the arena, Block 102, closest to the stage, Row A. The setlist planned to feature plenty of songs off their most recent album and even some from their early EP, with exclusive tracks that have not yet been released too.
After The 1975 intro, the band entered the stage with a new release, People. It’s not my favourite song of theirs but it definitely got the whole crowd going. The early section of the setlist was a highlight for me because it featured some of my favourite songs of theirs in succession. TOOTIME, Me & You Together Song, Sincerity is Scary and then my all-time favourite, It’s Not Living (if it’s not with you) were all as incredible live as I expected.
One obvious thing to mention about the show, which I am sure you can tell from all my photos, is how amazing the visuals are. The use of lighting and imagery during the set can be best described as ‘aesthetic’, but there are other incredible elements worth mentioning too. I always love the use of the travelator during Sincerity Is Scary, while during Lostmyhead it somehow looks like Matty is inside the big screen which is so clever.
Although The 1975’s new album, which the tour was initially intended to promote, has been pushed back to release in April, the band still played plenty of new songs. The Birthday Party, their latest single, was released a week before the Manchester concert, while If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know) will also be on the new album.
The 1975 change up their setlist a little bit at every concert, which is exciting because you never know exactly what you’re going to hear. At Manchester, they played early single Girls for the first time on this tour which I absolutely loved. It seemed thought out that it was followed by new song ‘Guys’, about the friendship of their band.
Of course, I also have to mention Matty’s stage presence which gave us some hilarious moments – I mean the whole situation of him being on crutches (a sprained ankle) and still trying to dance around as much as usual was really funny, as was him swinging the mic wire around but accidently knocking the whole mic stand over.
The show ended with an incredible encore including an old favourite, Chocolate which I think was the first song of theirs I ever listened to, an energetic performance of Give Yourself a Try and finally one of my all-time favourites, The Sound. It truly was the perfect one to end on, and I was very very excited to hear that guitar solo live.
The set lasted for two hours, beginning at quarter to nine and ending at quarter to eleven, which I think is really impressive for a band who only have three albums to their name – especially because there were plenty more songs they could have added to that setlist!
