Shot! The 1975 in Brighton
By: Gary Marlowe
Tags: 1975, Review, Brighton, Lighting, Music

There’s a song on the 1975’s latest album called Love It If We Made It. Whilst it may have been written about a relationship, its title could also describe how the band must have felt when I first saw them. That was back in May 2013.

They were playing Brighton’s Paganini Ballroom as part of that year’s Great Escape festival. I was there that day and I remember coming away feeling disappointed with their live performance, which fell a long way short of my expectations based on how good those nascent tracks like Chocolate sounded on record.

Fortunately, by the time I saw them again two years later in 2015, they had redeemed themselves and put on a really impressive show at the Brighton Centre, a show that stood out for its use of video graphics as much as the improvement in their stage presence.

For any artist in the music industry nothing says “we made it” more than headlining a massive festival. This year, the 1975 will headline Reading and Leeds. 2019 already feels like it’s going to be a huge year for the band, a year that kicked off with multiple BRIT award nominations and a headline tour of the UK in support of their third record, the internet-inspired, A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships that included two shows at the 02 Arena, Britain’s biggest indoor music venue.

Arguably, the best song on the album is Love It If We Made It. Lyrically smart, it references everything from selfie culture to Kanye West and Donald Trump. It also contains the line “Modernity has failed us.” In fact, one could contend that modernity is the very reason for the 1975s success and, in so many ways, it’s the very thing that epitomises them. They are a perfect example of a thoroughly modern band.

It comes through in their songs – the subjects they sing about and how they sound – and it resonates across every aspect of their live show. Like almost all big artists these days they’re backed by a huge video screen. Having one is just the start, it’s what you do with it that counts. And how the 1975 use theirs is what makes them such a modern live band. For that, they owe much to their award-winning lighting designer Tobias Rylander.

Visually, they’d stepped things up. Matty Healy had described it as being “full of light” and it certainly was. There were influences from Kasabian’s 48:13 tour of 2015 with the use of large text and solid colours. But perhaps most interesting is how LED video screens now have become light sources and are eclipsing conventional theatre lighting in dictating the mood and feel of each song.

For much of this show, Healy and his three band mates are enveloped in a haze of smog-like smoke and silhouetted against the ever changing glitzy screen graphics. Behind them are two extra musicians and a pair of dancers, the Jaiy Twins.

Three huge rectangular frames, one behind and one at either side, help create the impression of scale, while subconsciously alluding to the ubiquitous shape of modernity: the smartphone. The frames themselves are pulsating LEDs. And, to further emphasise the importance of the rectangle in contemporary life, the two video screens to either side of the set are in portrait mode, rather than landscape.

Being it was over three years since they last played Brighton, a palpable feeling of expectancy could be felt among the young, sold out crowd as they waited for what seemed ages for the 1975 to take the stage.

Even though he’s not your typical frontman, Matty Healy clearly has a special bond with his fans. Onstage, he’s a little awkward — often using his hoodie as something to hide his face, a face that increasingly reminds me of silent movie star Harold Lloyd, whilst at other times, there’s something of a James Dean look about him. What there’s no doubt about is he’s the focal point of the band.

The others, with the exception of guitarist/keyboard player, Adam Hann, are in truth fairly anonymous, preferring to just play their instruments and stay out of the limelight. Hann himself impressed with some excellent guitar licks, demonstrating that he’s the one most responsible for the band’s sound.

That being said, for me the real star of the show was the screen graphics. Appropriately for such a modern band, they elevated the performance into something a lot more interesting. As good as it was, now having read about other gigs on the tour, I’ve a suspicion Brighton, being the smallest venue, didn’t actually get to see the full show.

Whatever we got, it was a step up for the 1975, a performance that cements them as one of most important British bands out there. Now with three albums worth of material to choose from, the 24-song set has more light and shade and is peppered with more standout tunes for the audience to sing along to, something they did en mass from beginning to end.

Notable among the best were It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You) a song about Healy’s successful battle with heroin addiction and the gorgeous Change Of Heart which contains the personification of modern lyrics: ”And then you took a picture of your salad and put it on the Internet.”

Describing their music, someone recently put it like this: “The 1975 make slinky funk-pop for the smartphone generation.” I couldn’t say it any better. Although their name may be out of date, they make modern music, music that speaks to the youth of today.

Setlist: Give Yourself A Try | TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME | She’s American | UGH! | Sincerity Is Scary | It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You) | Loving Someone | The Ballad Of Me And My Brain | A Change Of Heart | Narcissist | How To Draw/Petrichor | An Encounter | Robbers | falling for you | Me | I Like America (And America Likes Me) | Somebody Else | Girls | I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes) || Love It If We Made It | Be My Mistake | Chocolate | The Sound | Sex