Words by Mark Griffin.

“Your Girlfriend’s Favourite Band.”

There’s been a lot of hype around The 1975’s latest tour. I feel like for the last month my TikTok feed has been Taylor Swift, Hayley Williams and Matty Healy of The 1975. The social media gods, or the algorithm at least, are definitely smiling on The 1975. Despite the hype, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.

I’m not a crazy The 1975 fan. I like their music when I hear it, but I haven’t really kept abreast of everything The 1975 related, and from the intensity of their fan base on social media, I gather there’s a lot of The 1975-related news. What this all means though, is that I’m heading into the fresh and with little in the way of preconceived ideas of what might happen, other than the snippets I’ve seen on TikTok.

They’re playing at the Qudos Bank Arena, which I stubbornly refuse to refer to as anything other than the Sydney Superdome, and there’s a real carnival atmosphere. That’s probably mostly due to the Easter Show, which appears to be absolutely pumping. I have to say though, other than the headache it caused for parking, having a giant carnival for your gig is great way to improve the pre-show atmosphere. Waiting to go through the security is one of the awful realities of the modern concert going experience (like airport security but a bit more friendly) and it’s definitely improved by the music pumping from the show just next to us.

I’ve somehow managed to score a plus-one to what is a sold a show (I know quite a few people who missed out on tickets), and I’ve dragged my friend, Nima, along with me. He’s always telling me that The 1975’s use of synths is amazing, so I figure who better to bring?

We fight out way through the crowds of show-bag toting families and we’re not long enough out of lockdown to not feel a slight tingle of enjoyment at being lost in a crowd again. As we get close to the Superdome, we realise the crowd is changing. It’s now almost exclusively 18-24 year-olds and every second or third person is wearing a The 1975 t-shirt. The crowd lined up for GA entry is very excited and there’s a lot of chanting and cheering. Things are a little more sedate over at the line for those with seats. Here there’s quite a few parents with younger teens, a few that look like this is maybe their first concert, and a couple of gig veterans like me and Nima who are happy to let the young ones up front and watch the show from the comfort of chairs.

As we move through security, we spot a few very excited girls behind us. One of them has a t-shirt fresh off the merch stand. It reads “You’re Girlfriend’s Favourite Band”. It’s self-aware and funny and, looking at the crowd, 100% accurate.

Inside and seated and the Superdome is maybe 60% full for Wallice who opens things up. I’d not heard of Wallice before but if the cheering from GA is anything to go by, the crowd loves her. She’s fresh from LA and excitedly tells the crowd that this is the biggest room she’s ever played. Her set gives kind of early Paramore vibes and the crowd gets into it. During a ballad, she has the the arena lit up with waving phone lights. Not quite as cool as cigarette lighters, but I guess we have to make some sacrifices for modernity. It’s a solid opening set and I expect I wouldn’t have been able to go much longer without hearing of her.

The lights dim and the now full arena is humming with anticipation for the main event. The screen lights up and we watch a ‘sleeping’ Matty Healy wake up as he’s wheeled to the stage on a bed. It’s a cool piece of production and from there, he launches straight into it. There’s a sort of lounge room set at the front of the state and he grabs an acoustic guitar and begins singing, When We Are Together. The band filter on stage and join him and from that point it’s all guns blazing. 

You can tell the fervour of the fan base from the excitement that greets every song in the set. It’s difficult to spot fan favourites given how excited the crowd is for every song. Nima and I show our age by getting into a brief sing-a-long when Matty leads the crowd in a rendition of Backstreet Boy’s classic, I Want It That Way, but if I had to pick one crowd favourite, it would be the song before the encore, Love It If We Made It. The stage explodes in blinding strobes and the crowd matches with screams and cheers and loud singing. In fact, the whole through Matty easily could’ve left lead vocals to the arena which seemed to know every word. They dance, they sing, they jump and they just really get into it.

Matty kicks off the encore alone and with the house lights up for, as he puts it, “a more democratic lighting arrangement”. This time he does let the arena take up vocal duties for him as he breaks out an acoustic rendition of, Be My Mistake. The band once again joins him, and they hammer home the last few songs, bringing out big hits, The Sound and Give Yourself a Try.

As we leave, Nima and I reflect on the show. It’s a bit of changing of the guard. The 1975 really do belong to Gen Z more than to haggard millennials like me and Nima. We also notice something else, though. We’ve both been to quite a few gigs with younger crowds, and maybe because the pandemic interrupted their formative concert-going years, they haven’t really appeared to know how to act at gigs. We’ve noticed a lot of young people at shows that are weirdly sedate and often a bit disinterested by what’s on stage.

That wasn’t the case at The 1975. As Nima put it, that’s the best young crowd he’s seen in a while. The 1975 really got this crowd going. From start to finish, the crowd was into everything they were doing. You know a band has won the crowd over when even the people up in the nosebleeds are standing for the whole set. The 1975 may be your girlfriend’s favourite band, but trust me when I say they absolutely f**king love them.