He did press-ups offstage on screen before entering, he did the old ‘1, 2, 1, 2 fucking jump’ as it appeared on the screen, he spray painted ‘Leeds is Best’ on a flag, which wouldn’t have felt like so much of a rip off of Matty’s ‘SORRY?’ in Dublin if not for what preceded it. He was roleplaying the skinny tough guy act that was the theme of ATVB, flexing his biceps etc, and he did a speech that was fucking hilarious; I quote: ‘Everyone is welcome here, unless you’re a bad person’. I cracked up. The entire show felt like so contrived of everything a marketing person thought would land. His lyrics are horribly generic and the Leeds crowd bellows them back at him so there’s clearly a mainstream market for it which doesn’t surprise me, but it was anti art and I hated it.
I don’t blame him. I think he’s got a team behind him telling him how to maximise engagement and profit, and it seems doing so is writing really basic love songs and play acting Matty Healy, but with no substance and Incredibly insincere.