Oh, We Go Where Nobody Knows: Reliving The 1975 Live in MNL

And this is how it starts…

Note: This concert memoir took 2 months (on and off) in the making. I started writing it right after watching the concert and finished it while proctoring the seventh graders’ last quarterly exam of the school year (shh!).

For the most part, my decision to go see The 1975 Live in Manila alone was met by my friends and family the same way they probably would have reacted to a bad boyfriend.

I say “probably,” because, for one thing, I’ve never had a bad boyfriend before; for another thing, I’ve never had a boyfriend. Period.

So as far as public reactions go? I wouldn’t really know, even though I fancy I do sometimes.

My disembodied love affair with The 1975 began one summer day while I was busy clearing my room out of every single college memorabilia I had zero sentiments left. It was one of those chores I loathed but could not think of anyone else to do for me, and so I did. All of a sudden, the radio started playing, “Girls.” At the time, I don’t know, but it just felt like love at first sound. After the track was played, I clung to the song title, “Girls,” and the band called “The 1975.”

Googling paid off. I jumped from listening to other The 1975 tracks in Grooveshark to watching their music videos on YouTube in a quarter of an hour. I got hold of a copy of the deluxe edition of their first album, and the rest, as they say, was history.

It didn’t take long for me to find out from one of my high school friends that The 1975 actually set foot in the country and played their songs for free in select Ayala malls. I wanted to shoot myself right then and there, but instead, shortly after performing a Hamlet-inspired soliloquy, I vowed to myself that the next time The 1975 was coming to the Philippines, I was going to be there. That was around April or May.

Come late September, news broke out that The 1975 was coming back for their first ever concert to be held in the SM MOA Concert Arena on January. Some British rock god answered my fangirl prayers. I did have some apprehensions. It was a long way from Cebu to Manila, and on top of the obvious concert and round trip plane ticket expenses, I had to think about basic survival stuff: food and shelter in the Capital.

Things started to fall into place by themselves. I was able to book plane tickets at promo rates; I was able to contact one of my friends in Manila to let me crash on her couch for the weekend; I was able to get my 15-day salary before the online tickets started selling in October—I couldn’t believe my luck!

When everything got settled, all that was left for me to do was to wait. And what a wait it was, from October to January. I’m not saying I just sat in one corner of my room playing The 1975 songs on loop. Naturally, I let life take me where it wanted me to be (Sagada for the semestral break, Manila for the Papal Visit, etc.)

In between that relatively long period of wait, my friends and family found out about my plans (I could not shut up about it). They were, for lack of a better word, appalled. My 70-something-year-old grandparents worried about how I was going to fare in Manila by myself. Blame it on all the Manila taxi horror stories they watched on TV. My grandmother said that back in her day, what I was about to get into was unthinkable for a proper young woman – but what does a “proper young woman” even mean today?

I applied for a half-day work leave the day before the concert. I went home, stuffed my bags, and waved for a cab to drive me to the airport. After the anxiety of being stuck in a Friday night traffic for a little over 2 hours, finding out that my 9 o’clock flight was going to be delayed by 3 more hours pushed me past my breaking point. I could not even relish in the supposed pleasure of my first ever solo flight. I hopped in and dashed out like it was no big deal (but may I just add that, coming from a lower middle class family, plane rides are kind of a big deal for me).

I arrived in Manila at 1:30 in the morning of the concert. By then, two of my closest high school friends had already stayed up and waited for me for more than a couple of hours. If that’s not true friendship, I don’t know what is. We got in a cab, the first of many I took in a city where cabs are notorious, nay, infamous, for Not. Giving. Change. At. All.

It wasn’t until 3 a.m. when the three of us fell asleep on the same bed. I knew I was exhausted from my long trip (made unnecessarily longer, thanks to a specific local airlines company), because I dozed off almost immediately. I wanted to start early the next day, even if it meant only 4 hours of sleep. I wanted to make the most of my Manila weekend, which would promptly end by Sunday evening (to be followed by the most exhausting Monday work day ever).

I had already resolved to go sightseeing in Intramuros, a place I had not set foot on in over 5 years. I’m not going to launch into a discussion of Intramuros. You can already deduce from its name – Spanish inner city – that it’s the local seat of historical nerdiness. I told my friends I could fend for myself from there, but they wouldn’t let up. We explored a couple of churches and museums and were so famished at the end of it all that we wound up spending nearly five times my intended lunch budget, but whatever. I owe to Barbara’s my growing love affair of pumpkin soup.

After lunch, it was time to head back to my hostess’ home for a power nap. My rock concert inexperience did not go so far as to make me ignorant of the absolute importance of body energy. The concert was still at 8, but paranoia brought me to the venue by 6:30. I had plenty of time to browse the official concert merchandise (and argue with myself as to the pros and cons of spending P1,000 on a shirt – cons won). By 7, the doors were opened to the arena proper. Thus seated beside the stage, I diligently pored over the lyrics to my favorite The 1975 songs one last time, as if I were cramming for a quiz. I was finally going to hear these guys live. I wanted to be in the moment in the most literal sense possible.

Now, I don’t know what your take is, but most people would consider concert going as a social activity. Apparently, it was unthinkable to do so alone, but I was never one to get the memo on whether or not to do certain things alone or in groups. It’s much too complex to keep track of these unwritten societal rules, and frankly, I don’t give a damn (Yes. That’s a Gone With the Wind reference). All of these would serve to intensify the hilarity of sitting next to someone who happened to share my belief on the subject.

She was in her last year in college. She was taking up business. She had been tailing The 1975 since their last Manila visit, and, on a completely different note, her next concert was The Vamps. Her promise to direct me to the nearest taxi stand after the concert sealed our friendship.

The clock struck 8. Still no sign of The 1975. Some DJ did his thing for the opening act. Every minute delay served to dampen the excitement. There I thought Brits were big on timekeeping. Then George just came up on stage in all his shirtless glory. In retrospect, his bandmates must have burned his shirt on purpose as a way of apology for keeping their Filipino fans waiting. If so, good call.

Before he could take up his place behind the drums, Adam, Ross, and Oh-My-Gosh Matt Freaking Healy (that’s his full name) just got up on stage like it was nobody’s business. They took up their places and started playing “The City.” It. Was. Amazing. How could they sound as good live as they did on record? What sorcery – But I digress. The night wore on. They played. I got up from my chair and started doing an embarrassing impression of a dance. I screamed the lyrics. I checked out George’s upper arm strength and resisted the urge to get up on stage and run my fingers over Matt’s beautiful hair.

Speaking of Matt, he was, if only for a lack of a better word, a performer. He sang; he did some kind of hairography; he jumped up the speakers; hell, he even took big swigs of alcohol on stage and smoked cigarettes in an otherwise smoke-free concert hall. For once in my life, I gulped in as much nicotine content as I could, knowing that they originated from Matt Freaking Healy. If I wasn’t Catholic, and if it weren’t blasphemous to do so, I’d have worshipped him right then and there.

Of course, there was a nagging voice at the back of my head saying Matt was a mess. There was no room for doubt, even between the generous wine bottle swigs. He staggered on stage. He slurred when he spoke. He did all these things so graciously that they looked like they were part of his performance, but when the music stopped, and he made sad attempts to talk to the concert goers, there was no denying the obvious. He probably didn’t even know where he was. He kept his fans high on music when he himself was high on drugs. At some point, I no longer wanted to run my fingers through his hair (which was, as previously mentioned, gorgeous). I just wanted to give him a big hug, because he certainly looked like he needed it.

But don’t worry. I wasn’t mental. I did no such thing. Instead, I tried to silence that nagging voice and focus my attention back to the music. I knew the lyrics by heart. I took an alarming number of photos. My camera heated up pretty quickly. My hands shook when I tried to capture my favorite songs played live on video. Some tracks I didn’t so much as bat an eyelash before made me think twice; I fell in love with “Fallingforyou” only when I heard it live. I kicked myself for not having heard “Medicine” beforehand when everybody else sang along. I rejoiced when I heard “Girls.” It felt like my fandom had come full circle. You’d think I’d reached the most climactic part of the night. Not even close.

“Sex” was noticeably left out of the set list yet. The audience started shifting nervously. You can leave out “Antichrist,” but you can’t leave out “Sex.” That’s just too cruel! Some smartass got it in his head to rouse the crowd into chanting, “We Want ‘Sex’!” over and over again. It goes without saying I joined in what ought to go down in history as the single most epic chant there ever was or ever will be.

When “Sex” was finally (finally!) played, I knew I had lived to witness the climax of all climaxes. I struggled to capture everything on video, sing (but really more like scream) along, and dance epileptically all at the exact same time.

It also happened to be the last song of the night. The unlikely friend I sat next to informed me that “Sex” was always saved for last in all The 1975 concerts. That, though hard to believe, the night was over. It was barely even 10 o’clock yet.

Watching The 1975 live was one of those few moments wherein you could tell, even while you were experiencing it, that you would remember it for the rest of your life. Amidst the deafening beats and blinding lights, I told myself with conviction that I was right when the rest of the world told me I was wrong. I mean, I’d never be able to prove it to them. But I also didn’t have to.

The wonderful specimen that is Matt Healy