In between two new albums, The 1975 are back on tour in North America and made a stop at the Washington Music (WaMu) Theater last week, and I was so excited to attend this concert. The 1975 is my favorite band in the entire world and all I ever think about is the next time that I can see them perform in person again.

This marks the third time that I have seen The 1975 perform live. In 2014, I attended their concert at a much smaller venue in Sacramento, California, just a few months after they had released their first studio album, the self-titled “The 1975.” The most popular songs off that record were the classics “Sex,” “Robbers,” and “Chocolate.”

Lead singer Matty Healy still had the sides of his head shaved and drank a glass of wine or two onstage at every show. In 2017 during my first year at Seattle University, The 1975 were coming to the much larger WaMu Theater on tour for their second album, “I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it.” My favorite songs off this new album, such as “Somebody Else,” “If I Believe You,” and “The Ballad of Me and My Brain,” had a completely different sound from those in the previous one, Healy had grown out his hair and was starting to recover from drug addiction.

Fast forward to 2018, The 1975 was promoting not one, but two new albums. The first album “A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships” was released in November 2018 and received praise from both fans and music critics. They immediately released tour dates and promoted the new album, “Notes on a Conditional Form,” speculated to come out within the next few months.

Healy had dyed his hair blonde, blue, and orange, and was officially back from rehab and thriving. Once again, I had dropped a good amount of my paycheck to get tickets to their show at WaMu Theater in April 2019 and the band did not disappoint.

It was great to be back at WaMu Theater—I was much smarter than during the first time I tried to attend a concert at that venue and ended up camping out 12 hours for nothing. I still had a great view of the show in the very middle of the crowd, and jumped on every opportunity I saw to move closer.

The most surprising part of the concert was how every artist actually started their set on time. Their openers were two new and upcoming musicians from their record label Dirty Hity: No Rome and Pale Waves, who both performed great sets of their synthy techno-pop tunes.

A majority of the setlist consisted of songs from the most recent album and played the most of my favorites as well, like “Give Yourself A Try,” “I Like America & America Likes Me,” and “I Couldn’t Be More In Love.” They also played a lot of the songs I mentioned from the two older albums, along with other favorites “Fallingforyou,” “She’s American,” and “Loving Someone.” The 1975 even brought out No Rome again to perform his song, “Narcissist,” that the band is featured on.

I loved being able to scream every lyric to every song and being in that space with other fans screaming the lyrics too. As I said before, this was the third time I had attended a The 1975 show, and to me, it just felt like I was home. In the midst of a very hard week, my favorite band was able to lift up my spirits for a few hours and allow me to ground myself in who I was.

I am so proud of how far this band has come and I have loved growing with them throughout the years. They are one of the most important bands of our generation and everyone deserves the chance to attend one of their shows.

Frances may be reached at
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