The 1975: From the Internet
Nine years since their last appearance at Worthy Farm, The 1975 made the jump to the top of the Pyramid Stage. With the Glastonbury performance being the band's only show of 2025, it was preceded by some rather interesting rumours about what could happen. Figures around the pricing of their staging had already been leaked (apparently four times their fee).
However, by the time they stepped onto the stage, some of the online rumours had been squashed. Matty hadn't shaved his head; instead, he arrived with boot cut jeans, a leather jacket, a roll-up, and a pint of Guinness, complete with a pre-split G. The budget clearly hadn't gone on the outfits. Still, it was clear that they'd put a lot of work and money into various areas.
The set from the 'At Their Very Best' and 'Still At Their Very Best' shows was gone, and replaced with numerous screens and the treadmill that ran across the front of the stage during their 2018 tour – there for Healy to glide around on, making a reappearance.
The band is a mixture of excitement and nervousness. George Daniel had admitted to the BBC that he was extremely nervous and had thrown up before they walked onto the stage. Healy was half bravado, half uncomfortable truth, still in shock at how they'd got there. His talent as a frontman shines through. Switching from a tormented pop star with a straightforward “Glastonbury-are-you-with-us?” and then into something more earnest, highlighting that the member's friendships are central to the success of the band, and then when the lights come on and he sees the Glastonbury crowd, he mutters "Oh Jesus." The band jumps between irony, self-deprecation, and strange behaviour, and popstar gesturing throughout.
A vastly different approach to a headline slot at the biggest festival in the world. However, the visual bombardment of the screens, lights, and the irony does not detract from the most important thing. The music.
The band, Matty Healy, Adam Hann, George Daniel and Ross MacDonald are all remarkable musicians, and they're backed up by some exceptional backing members who 1975 fans will come to know from recent tours. All of which add an extra live dynamic to the very diverse setlist.
Opening the show with ''Happiness' from their latest record 'Being Funny in a Foreign Language' the band shows that they're not here to make up the numbers. It's a confident opening track, perfect for festival settings. They then segue into their past era's first into 'If You're Too Shy' just after his Glastonbury address, "It's the hip-shaking, headline-making, have an emotional stake in. It's The 1975."
'Love Me' and 'She's American follow, unfiltered pop brilliance, that shines through the Glastonbury crowd. These songs haven't been played throughout the band's previous two tours, only getting sporadic appearances. So, playing them at their biggest show to date was quite something.
Online critics have claimed that the show wasn't a Glastonbury headline show. I disagree that the band deserves their moment in the sun. People like to moan; everyone is allowed an opinion, of course, but some of the online discourse I saw was downright silly. "All their songs sound the same." In a set that saw the band play 'Be My Mistake' and 'People. I defy people to tell me they sound the same.
The set was precisely what The 1975 is all about. With a performance full of humour, lyrics flash up on screen as Healy sings them, a touch that works exceptionally well during 'Part of the Band', which features some of the group's funniest lines. In 'Chocolate', the band fills the screens with playful, nonsensical gibberish that somehow perfectly matches Healy’s delivery. "Oh mah hez smell like chocolate"
Just before the band launched into 'Chocolate', a fan favourite, but not their most lyrically complex, Healy declared to the audience. "I am the greatest songwriter of my generation… a poet." A line that the armchair critics quickly misunderstood, Healy is constantly being ironic, and this line perfectly sums him up.
The heavy hitters are littered throughout the set. 'Love It If We Made It' is the band's most political track, and one of the sharpest critiques of the post-modern world. Echoed throughout the field, and through TV screens just minutes after Healy vowed to make the show's politics-free. 'Give Yourself a Try' is another live classic and one of the best moments of the show, with nods to Joy Division and some of Healy's best-ever lyrics, that sum up the band's relationship with the world they live in, and some nods to the fans to "she was a girl with a box tattoo on her arm."
'Robbers' provided fans with one of the biggest sing-alongs of the night, 'People' gave punk a Pyramid slot. The devastating Britpop, meets Radiohead banger 'I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)' is always a set highlight. 'Sex' is a mainstay in the setlist, and details backseat car sex, minutes after the band critiqued the world that we are all living in. Blending horror and humour, authenticity and artifice, let's remember this is a band that once said 'Sincerity is Scary'.
The party atmosphere doesn't go anywhere though, every headliner has their one moment on the Pyramid Stage, and for The 1975, it is 'The Sound' where Healy orders the crowd "young, old to jump" and jump they do. It's one of the moments of the set, sometimes all you need is a brilliant, gleaming 80s pop banger, and people will collectively lose themselves. In a brilliant set, this may be the crowning moment. Most bands end it there, that's not The 1975 way, though.
‘About You’ and its sweeping epic balladry bring the show to a close. Healy leaves the crowd with a poignant parting message: “It’s cool to be mysterious, but it’s cooler to be honest. We’re not going anywhere. Everything will be alright.”
It’s a heart-stopping confession for a band that means so much to people. A band that has just headlined the world’s biggest festival on their own terms.
Just before the song kicks in, he makes his final speech. “We’re The 1975 from the internet, we love you guys. This song’s About You.” Delivered with such heavy emotion, for a band often surrounded by controversy. This performance, their biggest to date, felt different. The music did their talking, all four of them got their moment.
As the final shoegaze swirl lingers, the band quietly leave the stage. One word is presented on the screen; the same word that has been on George Daniel’s kick drum all evening. Dogs.
It’s the perfect ending, so enigmatic, playful, so unmistakably The 1975. What does it mean? Is it the start of their next chapter? Maybe?
Thanks for reading
Jack