On November 29th, I made the trip from Jacksonville, IL to St. Louis, MO to see one of my favorite bands, The 1975. The Peabody Opera House, just next door to the Scottrade Center, was the perfect venue for this concert to be played. The decorations and atmosphere of that old Opera House set the backdrop for the sounds and lights coming from the stage. And oh my… how amazing the lights were, but more on that later.
Originally, we had not planned on seeing the opener, but we arrived early enough to see them anyhow. I am VERY pleased that we did. The show’s opener was Phantogram, a band that I had never heard previous to this show, but I absolutely loved them. They had an interesting sound. Half of their songs had a “hard rock” tone, while the others were more electronic. Their bassist even brought out an MPC beat machine during the middle of their set to live perform the production of some of their songs. Phantogram is definitely a band to keep an eye on in the near future.
But, the real star of the show, was of course the headliner, The 1975. Matty Healy, the frontman for the band, was a teenage girl’s dream in his dress clothes. (Which he of course unbuttoned until his shirt was merely cloth covering his arms.) The rest of his bandmates lit up the stage with their incredible musical talents, their unfaltering energy, and all around bright atmosphere. However, the part of the show that truly astounded me more than any other was the light show and theatrical set that The 1975 performed.
Having just written an article a short while ago about not taking pictures at concerts and enjoying the moment for what it is, I struggled to not share the beautiful scenery of this show with all of my friends. Eventually, I broke down and snapped a few photos as well as asked those who I saw taking photos to send some of them to me.
Breathtaking.
The scenery, the music, the atmosphere. All of it.
That mixture of ingredients produced one the greatest concert experiences of my life. But, the greatest moment of the concert came near the end of the show. Matty, the lead singer, gave a speech to the crowd that sounded eerily similar to the article I wrote just a few weeks ago. He asked that everyone in the crowd put their phones away, if only for just one song, and truly live in the moment and experience the full breadth of what was going around them at that moment. The band then played one of their lesser known album cuts, “Paris,” but the song felt like a Billboard smash hit because of how many people were uninhibited because of their lack of phones. Not one person was focused on anything but the music filling their ears and the show in front of them filling their eyes. I will never have a picture or video of that moment, and neither will anyone else in that opera house, but I can almost guarantee none of us will forget it.
I never wanted to leave that concert, but alas I had to. Writing this article brought back all of the memories, though. And that makes me very happy, almost as happy as Matty in this GIF.
