British rock group The 1975 will take an “indefinite hiatus” from live shows following their current tour, frontman Matty Healy revealed at a Sacramento concert Tuesday night.
“We love coming to this place and playing for you guys whenever we have the chance,” he told the crowd at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento. “And it’s wonderful you’re all here. After this tour, we will be going on an indefinite hiatus of shows, so it’s wonderful to have you guys with us tonight.”
It was only the third pitstop in the band’s 60-date “Still… At Their Very Best” tour when Healy unleashed this shocking news onto the crowd. Just a month prior, the 1975 had finished another mammoth, attention-grabbing tour titled “At Their Very Best,” in support of their 2022 album Being Funny in a Foreign Language.
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Now fans are wondering whether all that attention has anything to do with the band wanting to avoid the spotlight for a while.
The 1975’s previous tour and the viral clips of Healy’s strange onstage antics—including eating raw meat and kissing fans—elevated the enigmatic singer to a level of recognition beyond the band’s Tumblr-era followers. Particularly, Healy’s short-lived but highly public fling with Taylor Swift this past spring called attention to a number of controversies, including the time he did a Nazi salute onstage while playing a Kanye West song.
Soon after, he infamously went on the “dirtbag left” podcast The Adam Friedland Show where he joked about watching racially offensive porn and laughed while the hosts made racist jokes regarding the rapper Ice Spice. His proximity to Swift at the time rattled much of the singers’ online fan base. Eventually, the two musicians parted ways, and Healy quasi-apologized for his public offenses.
Perhaps in an act to rectify his behavior, Healy protested Malaysia’s anti-gay laws by kissing bassist Ross MacDonald during their set at the Good Vibes Fetsival in Selangor this past July. However, this move only accrued more backlash for the singer from attendees and the festival’s organizers, as the Malaysian government promptly ended the event.
It’s unclear whether we’ll get any further explanation on the band’s hiatus. But Healy has already pulled some stunts on this current tour, including a naked wax figure of himself lying on a grass mat on the B-stage. Certainly, social media can expect more weird performance art from the singer before he takes a break.
