Still … At Their Very Best: The 1975 Live in Show and in Concert, November 7th, 2023
On November 7th, The 1975 played the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ as a stop on the last leg of their lengthy “Still…At Their Very Best” tour. It was my second time seeing the group, but the crowd at their headlining performance at Lollapalooza in July was nothing like the group that was here to see The 1975 and just The 1975. You couldn’t look in any direction without seeing a pair of Dr. Martens or 2013 Tumblr-esque outfit. Their surge in popularity following the chart-topping single About You brought a new crowd of fans in, but it was clear that plenty of the pushes in the line to get in were from long-time listeners.
We boarded the PATH to Newark “dressed in black from head to toe” (but with nothing “hidden under our petticoats”). After a Q&A event with the venue’s booking and artist relations team, we headed to our seats, but after scouring SeatGeek’s rapidly dropping GA pit prices and deciding that money isn’t real when it comes to concerts, we found ourselves next to the B-stage, where the band would later migrate to right before our eyes.
After an opening set from Dora Jar, a curtain was dropped, and onto it projected the band’s circular logo. Greeted by shouts of anticipation, it sways as the strangely selected pre-show playlist kicks in. After what feels like the most tense twenty minutes of our lives, the lights dim and we are left to wait as the band slowly appears onto the stage. A camera follows each member's arrival, displaying their name beneath their likeness on the two screens on either side of the stage.
When Matty Healy, the band’s frontman and the Internet’s favorite “love-to-hate-him” Brit walks on stage, it’s hard to know what to expect. Because of his antics, which most fans attribute to his excessive drinking and chainsmoking on stage, no two shows are alike. The man is rarely seen without a bottle of red wine in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and a flask in his back pocket when he’s performing. But we love it anyways.
Despite his history of consuming raw steaks on stage and spitting in the lens of the camera that is projected onto the screen (and despite what would happen later in the show), the evening opened with Healy seated at the piano, playing the band’s eponymous track from their fifth studio album. A song titled “The 1975” appears on every album and is the opening track on each. Typically fairly simple in production, the focus of the self-titled songs emphasize their lyrics more than musicality. “You’re making an aesthetic out of not doing well,” Matty accuses the crowd. We sing along until his piano plinking fades out and he hauntingly leans into the microphone propped in front of him: “ladies…and…gentlemen…”
The most notable piece of this tour is the stage set and production. A cross-section of a house, with the band placed in different rooms separated by doors and furniture, acts as the backdrop to the show. A spiral staircase, stacks of old televisions, a leather sofa, and a lamppost are placed along the stage for the band (mostly Matty) to use in the performance. From dramatically laying on the couch in a Dionysean fashion, from sitting atop the lamppost Dreamworks-logo style, legs hanging over the edge, there’s only a few songs where he stands at a mic stand with a guitar slung over his shoulder like bassist Ross MacDonald and guitarist Adam Hann do.
The setlist was perfectly balanced between the five albums. Most of the first half was pulled from Being Funny In A Foreign Language, with groupings of upbeat songs with one another before transitioning into a slower section. Suddenly, the lights dimmed, and when they came up again, Healy had moved to the B-stage. A camera panned up to an aerial view of the flat surface to display a life-sized mannequin rendering of a nude Matty Healy lying on its side (one fans have lovingly named “Peanut” and one he joins by lying down and facing himself). Whether symbolic or just an extension of another stage antic, Peanut lay on the floor as Healy began strumming the chords for “Be My Mistake.” With acoustic guitar in hand, and slime TikToks playing on the screen behind him to ironically entertain the audience who dislikes the song, what felt like an intermission before an extended encore was a good time to catch our breath before launching into the upbeat “TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME.”
The encore of “Sex,” “Give Yourself a Try,” and one last return to the B-stage for “People” was easily my favorite part of the night, not just because the show ended merely fifty feet away from me. To finish off with a combination of one the band’s most popular, longest-loved songs, a motivational “you can do it” message, and a close-out with one of the most obscure tracks on their discography proved that the setlist really catered to any fan. Though disappointed that my favorite The 1975 song and top-played track of 2023, “She’s American,” didn’t make the cut, I left completely satisfied.
While walking out of the venue, with t-shirts tied on our purse straps and wristbands stuck to the inside of our sleeves, it was hard to put into words what we had just witnessed. After listening to songs like “Love It If We Made It” and “Somebody Else” for years in middle and high school through tears, dancing to “I’m In Love With You” and “Happiness” was a marker of growth for what seemed like the entire crowd, myself included. It’s been a decade since the release of their debut album, and somehow the fanbase and band have both changed entirely and stayed exactly the same. The band is heading on a well-deserved break and hiatus now, but there’s no doubt that upon their return to the live space, they’ll be “still…at their very best,” whenever that may be.
