“I do not see the point of inviting the 1975 to a country and then telling us who we can have sex with,” singer says at Kuala Lumpur’s Good Vibes fest
The 1975’s set at a Malaysian music festival was cut short Friday after frontman Matty Healy harshly criticized the country’s anti-LGBTQ+ stance onstage.
A handful of songs into the band’s headlining gig at Kuala Lumpur’s Good Vibes festival, Healy apologized for even taking the gig in Malaysia, which has strict laws banning same-sex relationships.
“I made a mistake. When we were booking shows, I wasn’t looking into it,” Healy said (via NME). “I don’t see the fucking point, right, I do not see the point of inviting the 1975 to a country and then telling us who we can have sex with.”
Healy continued, “I am sorry if that offends you and you’re religious and it’s part of your fucking government, but your government are a bunch of fucking retards and I don’t care anymore. If you push, I am going to push back. I am not in the fucking mood.”
Healy noted how the 1975’s set would not feature any uplifting songs “because I’m fucking furious and that’s not fair on you because you’re not representative of your government. Because you are young people and I am sure a lot of you are gay and progressive and cool. So I pulled the show yesterday and we had a conversation and we said, ‘You know what? We can’t let these kids down because they’re not the problem.’”
Healy then told the crowd that the band had previously played a gig in an LGBTQ-unfriendly country — “I don’t know what the fuck it is,” Healy said; it was Dubai in 2019, where Healy kissed a male fan onstage to protest the laws — and, upon concluding his speech, kissed the 1975 bassist Ross McDonald.
Following the show’s seventh song, “I Couldn’t Be More in Love,” the gig was abruptly cut short, with Healy telling the crowd they “just got banned from Kuala Lumpur.”
In a statement, organizers of the Good Vibes fest confirmed that the 1975’s set had been cut short due to “non-compliance with local performance guidelines.”