// M A N C H E S T E R T O N I G H T // L O V E , T H E 1 9 7 5

The 1975 Day was a Sunday, and that Sunday, despite it being two days away from my first essay deadline, I allowed myself to not think about essays for the entire day. So when Carmen suggested we go shopping before going to the show, I went all out and suggested we had sushi for lunch, and that was what we did. Any day with sushi is always a good day. Then we had bubble tea at Chinatown before shopping at Primark, seeking solace in retail therapy. We went back to Weston to change into concert wear after that – and emerged wearing unplanned matching outfits of black tops with denim skirts. I learned my lesson from Halsey the previous time and sacrificed the wellbeing of my toes and my shoes to wear platforms to compensate for my height. And then it was off to O2 Apollo we went, TO WATCH THE 1975 LIVE IN MANCHESTER

We joined the queue at 5.30PM, so that wasn’t very early but the line wasn’t very long either. The spring sunset was very pretty and it was the subject of our attention for a good few minutes due to the lack of stimuli present while waiting in the queue. At 7PM, the queue started moving and an objective observation that I can make, all the way into the crowd in the venue, is that the crowd of concertgoers was definitely calmer and less terrifying and rowdy than the one at Halsey. O2 Apollo was so much bigger than Manchester Academy as well, that I didn’t feel suffocated or pushed from all sides by the crowd, making the show already much more pleasant before it had even begun.

The opening act was called The Japanese House, which, okay. They were not bad and it was fronted by a female vocalist so that was even more appealing. Later on, we found out that they would also be attending Dot To Dot Festival.

At half past eight, The Japanese House left the stage, and in place were bright white lights shining from the stage and onto the crowd while a subtle but consistent hum of suspense filled the room, the kind which you can easily dismiss as background noise or a stray note from an instrument if you don’t pay too much attention to it. But it gradually got louder and more high-pitched, like a revved up engine, deliberately instilling suspense even where there was none in the first place. And then at 9PM on the dot, the stage went dark and the hum went silent and the crowd went wild, before we were greeted by a saxophone intro and a bright pink-lit stage to Love Me.

Every single stage set-up for each song was so aesthetically pleasing they looked like they were taken straight out of a magazine (see what I did).

The climax of my night was possibly fallingforyou, and I told myself I wouldn’t cry but I did anyway because the live performance of that song hit me in all the right places and it was just very beautiful and very incredible to contrast listening to their songs in my room two, three years ago in college and now, standing in front of the actual real band watching and listening to them perform live. I love music shows so much.

Setlist:

Love Me
UGH!
Heart Out
So Far (It’s Alright)
A Change of Heart
She’s American
Anobrain
Menswear
The Ballad of Me and My Brain
Me
fallingforyou
Somebody Else
Robbers
You
Loving Someone
Paris
Girls

Encore:

If I Believe You
Chocolate
The Sound
Sex

The final encore was everything everyone wanted, literally, as people started chanting, “We want Sex!” (not something to be heard out of context). And so, with a “Thank you, Manchester!” from Matty followed by Sex (the song), the night came to an end and both Carmen and I reluctantly left, exclaiming non-stop about how good of a show it was. And then we had dim sum for supper to round up the pretty much perfect day.

(Playlist)