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.
