The 1975 - November 28th, 2015 - The Academy, Manchester (Concert Review)

Feeling the desire to hop on a plane again, I decided on November 27^th to book a flight and headed off to the airport about 6 hours later at 4AM on Saturday, November 28^th, to get transferred over to Manchester where The 1975 were scheduled to play their sold out hometown show.

After a couple of hours in the city center, exploring the alleys and browsing through the Arndale, I went to check out the sight of the venue and wasn't exactly surprised when I saw a whole lot of people already lining up at the doors of it. Some had even been camping out there since the day before. While I used to do my fair share of waiting in a queue all day for gigs in the past, I will never understand how people manage to actually camp outside the venue, especially during cold winter months. That's dedication, I guess … with a certain amount of insanity. Considering that this certain band has already sold out the Apollo thrice for their future tour in March 2016, the insanity seemed a little more appropriate considering their popularity in their home country.

Doors opened at 7PM and the process went by rather fast to my own fascination. The queue at that point went down Oxford Road, all the way down to the University of Manchester and probably even further. It was mental.

After another half an hour outside, I finally managed to make my way into the Academy and after giving my belongings away at the cloak room, I placed myself rather in the back with enough room around me to dance and a proper view to the stage.

As support act, RatBoy [3] got chosen and while the choice seemed logical, it didn't throw me off the rails. Some songs had rather interesting instrumental parts and arrangements, but I didn't really get into it all that much. Unlike the crowd around me of which quite a percentage even knew the lyrics to the songs that got played.

45 minutes later, the band left the stage again, the crowd got blinded with bright lights instead and the changeover of the stage was happening in disguise.

The tension in the venue got close to unbearable and the screams got louder and louder by the minute. Finally, The 1975 [10] hit the stage with Love Me, their first song to have gotten released from their upcoming record I Like It When You Sleep For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It (What a title, guys). The second the track started, the whole crowd exploded with joy. What an unreal moment to experience. But also, the second it all began, the stage light installation (by Tobias Rylander) instantly consumed you and goosebumps rushed all over your body. The combination of this artistic use of lights and the feeling the music by these British fellows gives you is such a unique feeling, it's unexplainable.

There was nobody standing still. Everybody danced. Everybody sang along. Everybody enjoyed themselves to the fullest. It was purely beautiful.

Without hesitation, Heart Out started and the party kept rolling. One of the many highlights of the light show was during The City when the whole setup looked like White Noise on a TV screen and the band members were nothing but mere silhouettes moving in front of the screens, producing one of the most gorgeous images I ever got to see.

(Picture by Phoebe Dalton)

With HNSCC, the band took a short break and the room quieted down to take a breath and fuel up on energy again of what was to come.

The vibe though didn't die down as they hit the stage again with Menswear and then presented the crowd with two of their unreleased songs from ILIWYSFYASBYSAOI (… wow …) called Change of Heart and She's American.

For the next song, frontman Matty Healy asked everybody in the room to put away their phones and just listen and connect with everybody for the next five minutes, to live in the moment and experience it all together, which was an amazing act seeing as 98% of the crowd actually participated and the atmosphere got created perfectly for the heavy and nostalgic Me.

With another ballad called fallingforyou, the band further showed their softer side to the crowd and engaged everybody in their performance as it got more and more hauntingly beautiful.

After thanking the crowd for their consideration and participation in the no-phones-rule, the party opened up again with Somebody Else, another unreleased song, and probably my favorite. With another new song called The Sound, the whole room jumped at the order of Healy when the 'breakdown' of the song kicked in.

Another short interlude, An Encounter, later, the beloved Robbers got its show time and then got closed off with one of their many huge hits called Girls.

The band left the stage for a bit to then reappear with the most gorgeous lighting to guide them through Medicine. Not gonna lie, the pure beauty of it all, visuals and music combined in such a way, made me tear up a bit.

Obviously they couldn't leave the stage without their two biggest songs, Chocolate and Sex, and the room exploded once more. Or as Healy demanded: Go fuckin' mental!

Without any exaggeration whatsoever, the current show by The 1975 is the most gorgeous, all-consuming and enjoyable around these days. There is absolutely no doubt about that. I see about 300 gigs every year, and this one was the best one of 2015. The hometown factor definitely added to it all as Healy talked a lot about Manchester during the show, but even without it, it would have been the most beautiful thing.

Huge, huge shout-out to Tobias Rylander for the creation of this light installation because without it, the gig would still have been amazing, but not as hauntingly beautiful and overwhelming as it is now, incorporating The 1975's old aesthetic with three frames above the stage and the new with the screens in the background.

This is art.

Here's the full setlist:

Love Me

Heart Out

Settle Down

So Far (It's Alright)

The City

You

HNSCC (played from tape)

Menswear

Change of Heart

She's American

Me

fallingforyou

Somebody Else

The Sound

An Encounter (played from tape)

Robbers 

Girls

Medicine

Chocolate

Sex

The 1975 will be back in the UK in March and will tour Europe in April, as well as several festival appearances following that. Check all dates, including for North America in May, on their site: |x|

I Like It When You Sleep For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It will be released on February 26^th, 2016, pre-order it now!

Cheerio xx

The Neighbourhood - November 17th, 2015 - Gloria Theater, Cologne (Concert Review)

Long overdue but about three weeks ago, on November 17^th, I spontaneously hopped on a train to Cologne to see The Neighbourhood at the sold out Gloria Theater. Let me tell you one thing straight ahead, they made it worth it all.

When I got to the venue at around 5:30PM, there was already a huge line of girls queueing to get into the venue. Occasional screams echoed down the street whenever the door of the tour bus, parked right in front of the building, opened and someone hopped in or out of it. 

The point the doors opened at 7PM, the girls went utterly mad and started sprinting towards the entrance. It was quite a sight.

Once inside, there wasn't much time left till the support act would hit the stage since going into the venue took ages. If that was due to security staff being overwhelmed with their duty or the girls being too impatient and interfering with their work is hard to tell, it was probably a lot of both.

Tunji Ige [6], a rapper from Pennsylvania, had quite a hard time getting to the crowd who were only interacting with the artist for the most part whenever he mentioned the headliner band. Nonetheless, some of his tracks got the room to jump along and dance for a while, but only for a short amount of time. After about 30 minutes, he and his accompanying DJ leave the stage again to make way for the main act.

As the stage gets prepared, not much has to get changed and it all remains pretty much the same. There's no back drop. No extensive lights. No huge production. All things viewable are the instruments and a couple of mics. Minimalism and simplicity as we know it from The Neighbourhood guys.

The Neighbourhood [9] open with the thundering intro of Ferrari, a new track from their just recently released record Wiped Out! (you can check out my review of it here: |x| ), but don't got further into the song than that and instead smoothly go into What Do You Want From Me.

The show gets played with hardly any talk sequences in between, which is much to my personal liking as the whole performance seems a lot smoother due to that. All tracks flow smoothly into each other and trap you further in their haunting and mezmerizing performance, no matter if they go from a more playful Prey into a slow Baby Came Home, or back from Daddy Issues into a more upbeat Female Robbery.

There's a bigger rumble of dislike going through the crowd as the band gets to the experimental and instrumental part of Wiped Out!, I personally loved that certain part the most as the focus is solely on the music and the track is also one of my favorites off of that new record.

As it has to be, Sweater Weather found a place in the setlist, too, as the second to last song. The crowd goes mental to the band's biggest hit up-to-date. No matter what though, it is a solid track and it is after all what brought them to a bigger audience. It is also clear that the most part of the people that night were only waiting for this to be played.

Despite that, they decided to go out with another bang instead of letting Sweater Weather fade and close up their show with RIP 2 My Youth.

A special shout out at this point to the band's FOH guy and light engineer because the sound and visuals were nothing short of stunning, working perfectly well with the band's concept of minimalism.

Here is the complete setlist:

Ferrari Intro

W.D.Y.W.F.M.

Let It Go

Wires

Prey

Baby Came Home

Afraid

Daddy Issues

Female Robbery

The Beach

Wiped Out!

Warm

Sweater Weather

RIP 2 My Youth

Personally, from their debut I Love You, Staying Up was definitely missing, and as far as their newest record is concerned, I would've loved to hear Cry Baby and Single. But the show was beautiful nevertheless, worth the travel and surely worth experiencing again.

The Neighbourhood will be back in Germany in March 2016 for their Underwatour, check their website for all tour dates: |x|

Listen to their latest release Wiped Out! on Spotify and buy it at a record store near you!

Cheerio xx