The 1975 at Reading 2019

Cast your mind back to September 2013 and the chances are that wherever you might be in the country, you would ever so slightly be able to hear Alex Turner ask why you only call him when he’s high. The breakthrough sound and most exciting band of the previous decade had just unleashed their most celebrated and complete record in AM. No longer were Arctic Monkeys just that brash new indie band from Sheffield, they were the UK’s biggest thing in music. Turner had shrugged off the shy and scruffy 20-something-year-old lad persona, put a lump of pomade through his hair, and took to stages here, there and everywhere as a bonafide cavalier of a frontman. The Pyramid Stage was already conquered twice over and now they were heading for good old world domination.

Preceding AM (and bizarrely following Avenged Sevenfold’s Hail to the King) at the top of the UK Album Charts was the debut record from a band called The 1975. It sounded like absolutely nothing else out there. A bright and unapologetically electronic indie sound in a year which saw Mumford & Sons headline Glastonbury after barely doing two albums and Jake Bugg get nominated for absolutely everything.

This wasn’t an album by a new band by any stretch. Four EPs deep, they were very much Radio One sweethearts, had spent the summer before their debut’s release playing stadiums with Muse and The Stones and were selling out sweaty halls across the country – but just one year after The 1975, sweaty halls became two-night runs at Ally Pally – the UK had found it’s new scruffy 20-something-year-old lad it was looking for. Albeit, a figure somewhat complicated by his do-good egotistical character.

As challenging as Healy has been for both ‘proper journos’ and gossip tabloid inches, The 1975’s development has also been a challenge to its musical rivals. In the six years since their first release, indie bands have emerged from, evolved towards and ignored the sound that has helped Healy’s lot keep those from back in 2013 sticking around and keep audiences growing, even when their sound is becoming increasingly experimental.

The main bill for Reading Festival’s Friday night this year began with The Wombats. A noughties band that has dug deep and clung on to relevancy ever since emerging, much to their credit. An awful lot of bands debuting at their time won’t even be pitching a tent at R&L this year, let alone a main stage set. It’s sometimes appeared strikingly obvious that The Wombats’ later stuff is straight out of the playbook drawn up by The 1975.

In contrast, immediately afterwards came the two-piece Royal Blood. Their loud, empty and repetitive tracks from their first two albums had never seemed so archaic and out-of-touch until followed by what was a triumphant headline performance and a heartwarming bow out to a decade seemingly lacking any brand-new UK headliners without a loop pedal* you’d like to stomp on.

It was someone new every year on Richfield Avenue in the previous decade. The Darkness, Razorlight, Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party and then finally the Monkeys in 2009 all had their turn. Until last night, no band which had released its debut album this side of 2010 has managed to break through the rut of heritage US acts and the noughties’ beloved Kasabians or Muses and be trusted with an outright headline spot.

And then there they were. The 1975 from Macclesfield. The 1975 from 2013. The 1975 from a world of Brexit, ISIS, migrant crises, Boaty McBoatface, Flight MH370, Trump, LQBTQ+ rights, Tim Peake, Gareth Southgate, #MeToo, Tinder, Grenfell Tower, Meghan Markle, Cambridge Analytica and 5p carrier bags. Headlining Friday night at Reading Festival.

It’s a different world since 2013, something that The 1975 absolutely get and Royal Blood miss completely. The Reading stage is not short of iconic moments from throughout the years, but genuine political movements are few and far between. On this occasion, The 1975’s pop, as Healy described himself, ‘classics’ were united by sincere calls for social equality throughout the 90-minute set.

They’ve nailed Reading and now should be heading for a spot on top of next year’s Glastonbury billing. For where they now stand in British music and what they stand for, that spot is rightfully theirs.

They know what it takes to be a band in 2019 and a headline act at that. Born out of the year of the last great indie moment, they’ve become a bit of a big deal – British music’s voice of this decade. But crucially they’re not the only ones driven by both good music and egalitarianism. And now The 1975 are accepted as ‘serious’ mainstream headliners, it’s time to lend these spaces to this current crop of thoughtful musicians more often.

- by Ryan

* – "loop pedal" originally "face"