“The 1975” made hearts beat faster in the Wiener Stadthalle!
It was the concert that everyone had been looking forward to: “The 1975” stopped in the middle of festival dates at the Wiener Stadthalle with a stripped-down “at their very best” show. days before, fans camped in the rain to get as close as possible to singer Matty Healy on the evening in question. Concert goers came from everywhere and the queue was endless. On days like these, I was very happy that not everyone knew how to enter the town hall via the garage. and in a flash we were inside without queuing for long.
The evening started with a support band, namely “wallice“. Once again, I hadn’t informed myself in advance and when the singer made the first sounds, I was really excited. Together with her band, she actually made the kind of music that I had been into over the last few years. strong voice, melodic songs and always a real dose of wild electric guitars. You could perhaps even say that I became a fan of “Wallice” (I added a few Wallice songs to my playlists a little later).
Of course, this evening was mainly about “the 1975and for her audience in the Austrian capital. Before things really started on stage, there were shots on the big screen of the leader of the group, namely Matty Healy, backstage, comfortably smoking a cigarette, even though he should have been on stage long ago. but that was part of the show. The concept was simple and at the same time pretty ingenious: a cameraman had the task of accompanying the singer throughout the entire show, at the same time the recordings were projected onto the big screen and you always had two perspectives, so to speak: your own and that of the cameraman always very close to the frontman. It was almost like seeing behind-the-scenes footage at the same time.
The hype was huge – the density of fans in the first 100 rows was unbelievable. Once you left the human pool, you could never find your way back. My biggest but unfortunately unavoidable mistake – I then had no chance of finding my friend in the wild people again. So we continued to watch the concert separately but that wasn’t so bad, at least there was a lot to see on stage.
Matty Healy danced casually from the first second with his eye patch, kneeling down, spinning the microphone stand, sitting on the chair, smoking, drinking wine – he delivered from his makeshift living room and pretty much overshadowed his band. But how could you seem more than Matty Healy, the man of the moment that everyone around the world has been talking about lately. and now there he was, at his best, in his full glory, singing fervently for the Viennese audience.
“oh oh caroline” he sang, followed by “i’m in love with youuuu, i, i ,i, i’m in love with youuu” and everyone sang along. and then my oversized feeling of hype slowly began to crumble. but what did I expect? lots of hits. and yes, the songs mentioned are hits, but more of a gentle version of hits. those that invite you to comfortably rock along. However, I was waiting for the over-the-top bangers like “The Sound” that will carry you away and encourage you to dance. But we were still at the beginning, so I still had hope.
Admittedly, I wasn’t 100% familiar with all of The 1975’s work, I thought my basic knowledge and adoration of a few new songs would be enough to understand this performance. But very soon I realized that it was about much more. about much more than just a concert, about much more than hits that a stranded millennial like me wanted to hear. By the way, I read later that the set list was absolute madness – that led to a brief moment of incomprehension for me, as I spent most of the concert waiting for a huge highlight. Okay, it wasn’t that bad, it was all very nice anyway, even if it was almost exaggeratedly gentle. As a millennial, I was later happy about the Backstreets Boys cover. Unfortunately I can’t change that.
In any case, as already mentioned, it was about much more than what I expected (namely hits and a good mood). It was about the “god” Matty Healy and how he treated his followers (it happened several times that he kissed fans in the front row) and what hidden messages he communicated. He had a very obvious message for a lady in the front row who has often been in the front row around the world – Matty Healy left some of his stage accessories to her, including his eye patch. my heart began to melt.
Another topic that evening that fueled the search for messages: Healy had just ended his fling with Taylor Swift and some fans were probably worried about him. He announced that he was doing well and that he had a wonderful band who were also his best and that there was no reason to worry. that was nice. And so all the gossip finally came to an end.
A few more soft hits followed like “Love it if we made it” and a faster one, the all-time hit “Sex” and at the end the 1975 gave us “I like America & America likes me” and: a ballad. yes, they ended their set with the ballad “102.” That left me a bit perplexed. especially because they disappeared from the stage without saying a word and no one knew exactly whether anything else would happen or not. It was like a very wild, colorful dream that suddenly ends abruptly because you wake up.
It ended up being a rather unsatisfactory ending for me. But I saw a variety of positive emotions in the faces of those present. And so it was probably a good concert after all. a good concert that I didn’t fully understand at the time.