Gig Review: The 1975 at First Direct Arena, Leeds

It’s a Monday night, and Leeds First Direct Arena smells inexplicably like cherry lambrini and dry shampoo. Baggy-skateboard pants with pocket chains skim the ground of feet queuing at the merch stand, and the toilets are full of girls applying thick black liner to eyes that peek out from under slick, flat-ironed hair.
The 1975 at First Direct Arena, Leeds. Picture: Jenessa WilliamsThe 1975 at First Direct Arena, Leeds. Picture: Jenessa Williams
The 1975 at First Direct Arena, Leeds. Picture: Jenessa Williams

The 1975 may have been experimenting recently with a more turn-of-the-century sound palette, but it appears their fans have remixed the aesthetic for themselves – Nu Metal, just a little more Instagram friendly.

Born in the Year 2000, Brit-Award Rising Star Beabadoobee is leading this charge. Flanked by a tight band, she is virtually unrecognisable from the girl who sat on a stool in The Social during 2019’s Live at Leeds, politely begging the crowd to quiet so she could hear herself play. If she looks a little nervous at the size of the room, she really doesn’t need to be – her take on grunge is cool-yet, promising excellent things for her upcoming debut record.

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To all the festival bookers claiming that they couldn’t possibly book a few more female acts without compromising their genre integrity (naming no names), her half-hour set gives them nine specific reasons why that excuse can simply no longer hold up. 

There’s no light show in the live game right now that could eclipse The 1975s. Fans may have turned out for the music, but we stay for the spectacle – groaning, open gummed mouths, neon tickertape, a TLC-lava lamp style warp that would be at home in any acid rave…very little has changed since their headline set at last summer’s Leeds Festival, but there are no complaints here – it would be difficult to imagine ever getting sick of something quite so visually arresting.

Tuned to similar performance-perfection is the bands central force, Matty Healy. He moves with a magnetism that is difficult to deny – thrashing around air guitar style during ‘Me And You Together Song’, falling into sweet choreography with the backing dancer twins for ‘TooTimeTooTimeTooTime’ and ‘Sincerity Is Scary’, knocking comedy knees like a deranged Elvis in ‘It’s Not Living If It’s Not With You’. When he wants to, he can really sing – the satisfyingly smaltzy ‘I Couldnt Be More In Love’ sees him belt out a chorus that defies his skinny frame, while ‘Robbers’ would be fit for any stadium.

He’s perhaps on slightly more business-like form than usual – there are none of his usual ‘Motormouth Matty’ speeches, very little of his playful banter. In fairness, the lad is probably just knackered – Christmas was spent tinkering on their much-pushed fourth-record, and the week’s news agenda has been emotionally exhausting for everyone, let alone somebody who knows all too well what it’s like to have your every move monitored in the press. But even operating on less than 100 per cent, there’s no denying whose show it is – at one point a platform emerges on a riser to lift him above his band mates, and another track sees the word ‘Matty’ flash across the screens in various different Tumblr-esque fonts. ‘You’d do it if you could’, he quips.

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Speaking of that soon-coming album, we’re treated tonight to two previously unheard songs. ‘If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)’ is instantly ’75 gold with its chunky 80s sax and gleeful lyrics about awkward sex, while ‘Guys’ is a certified boyband farewell, an ode to an era where all pop acts were required to release one cheesy career-retrospective ballad before they could retire in peace. It’ll take a few more listens before one can decide whether it’s a full bishop’s stinker or a guilty pleasure Diarylea, but it’s a fitting bookmark for a band who recently announced that although they plan on being around for years to come, they’ve grown heartily tired of the traditional album-release format.

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