The Ballad of Matty Healy and His Brain: The 1975 At Their Very Best
Words by Bella Maresca (they/them) and Maia Ingoe (she/her)
On 19 April, crowds gathered in their hundreds at TSB Arena to see indie-pop band The 1975 for the Wellington leg of their At Their Very Best tour. Every concert-goer was ready to live out their 2013-Tumblr-girl fantasy.
The show opened with ‘The Birthday Party’, but in the wrong key, prompting a re-start with frontman Matty ‘The Ratty’ Healy saying, “There are no rules to this show.” There was not a dull moment in the 25-song long setlist, delighting fans and bringing a high-energy intensity to the arena. Hits such as ‘Happiness’, ‘UGH!’ and ‘Robbers’ were highlights of the first half of the set. ‘Love it if We Made It’ sent us all spiralling into existential dread, and an acoustic mashup of ‘Paris’, ‘Me & You Together Song’ and ‘Wintering’ felt like a lil treat, just for us. Crowd-pleaser ‘The Sound’ had the entire arena jumping together in one of the most joyous concert experiences we’ve had.
Matty is known for his erratic, boundary-pushing performance, which gathers as much controversy as it does popularity on TikTok. His performances prompt the question: how much of it is truly concerning, and how much is part of his social experiment?
Matty confessed to the crowd, “I’m trying to be myself, which is a weird thing to do in public.” Fans noted that he appeared tired of the ‘Truman Black’ alter-ego he presents on stage and on his social media accounts, which were deactivated only days prior to his appearance in Wellington. “Being single and a bloke is mental, and if you're on the internet, you go a bit insane. I went a bit insane and then I made a show about it,” Matty explained to the crowd. Now, he said, he’s “starting to come down from this social experiment.” The show was full of moments of sincerity, despite ‘Sincerity is Scary’ not making it onto the set list (a disappointing moment for fellow Brief Inquiry girlies).
The crowd delighted in the Matty moments, regardless of concerns over his well-being. He chain smoked through the performance on TSB Arena’s smokefree stage, tucking half-smoked cigarettes into guitar strings, and swigging from a red wine bottle, which never appeared to get below half-empty. Matty dedicated ‘I’m in Love With You’ to the boys in the audience in a speech beginning with, “I’m not a meninist, but…” He acknowledged mens’ mental health struggles and compared their lack of socialisation to the wine nights that girls and “people of all different creeds, and gender expressions” have. Men, he said, needed “football, and shit like that” to tell each other “bro, I fucking love you.” He added, “You can love dudes, and it’s not gay. [But] it’s a bit gay when I do it.”
A Wattpad Y/N dream became reality for one fan when Matty recognised them in the crowd, telling us how they went on a walk together in New York, but “it wasn’t weird”. This fan was Emily Sachs (@emilyxinfinity on TikTok) who has followed the band around half the world. Sachs told Salient, “It caught me quite off guard to see the sincere, down-to-earth version of Matty that I’d met in New York up on stage just being himself.”
Nearing the half-way point of the show, Matty declared “I’m bored of the show now.” Not wanting to be “exposed”, he harassed the lighting technicians into turning the house lights on to give the room “democracy”. Sitting in the centre of the stage with a towel covering his head, he sang a harrowing rendition of ‘I Like America & America Likes Me’. In this moment, Matty truly appeared to be sick of the social media sensationalisation of his performance, transforming his joking moments into meaningful soundbites.
The 1975’s shows don’t often end with an encore. When the lights went down and Matty remained on stage, with only his silhouette and the soft glow of his cigarette visible, we waited in anticipation. He told us that he’s been working on a film and asked that we stick around to be part of it. He ventured into the centre of the crowd and began an acoustic version of ‘Be My Mistake’, wanting to end the show singing together. However, this was Aotearoa, and any moment of silence brings someone out to sing, at the top of their lungs, ‘Tūtira Mai Ngā Iwi’. The crowd couldn’t help but join in, drowning Matty out. This was a real moment of sincerity.