The 1975 performs during Outside Lands Music Festival in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco on Aug. 13, 2023. Photo: Alive Coverage.

SAN FRANCISCO — There were a lot of tired people at Golden Gate Park on Sunday for the final day of Outside Lands. The telltale signs: more blankets, slower movement between stages and a more relaxed vibe. Of course, that all faded away once the night’s headliners hit the stage. While electronic dance unit Odesza got top billing on the Land’s End stage, U.K. alt-pop and rock band The 1975 had the honor of closing out the festival at Twin Peaks to a large and boisterous crowd.

“Well, well, well. how you doing babies?” frontman Matty Healy asked, taking a drag on a cigarette and a hit from a flask.

The band then launched into “Happiness,” with Healy sitting down behind a keyboard for the outro. Healy has found himself the center of attention for a laundry list of controversial comments, tweets Xs and actions; sometimes leading to pushback or bans from homophobic governments of entire countries. So it comes with the territory that what he says often under some level of scrutiny.

“Thank you so much to see our band everyone, we’re very happy to be here,” Healy said as he put on his acoustic guitar for “I’m In Love With You.”

No controversies would follow Healy from Outside Lands. The 1975’s performance dialed in a heavy emphasis on the music; primarily 2022 album Being Funny In A Foreign Language. Judging by the frenzy from the crowd, the band’s fans tend to separate Healy’s lightning rod tendencies with his rock star status. Not unlike Inhaler earlier in the day, the band and its frontman have a keen ability to whip a crowd into a frenzy with just a few opening notes.

Fans screamed their appreciation, singing along to upbeat tracks like “If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know).” Musically, the band delivered a strong performance with an E Street Band sensibility. Healy lit a cigarette and pulled the flask back out as he walked the stage on mid-tempo ballad “About You.” He was a bit of a dichotomy between the musician and the performer. On The 1975 At Their Very Best Tour, which passed through San Francisco last fall, Healy’s into performance art. At Outside Lands, he’d stagger and slam the flask, then deliver a well-performed vocal.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is The 1975,” he said, reintroducing the band before moving onto “Robbers.”

Healy asked the crowd to give each other space to move, then jump up and down on upbeat anthem “The Sound.”

The 1975. Photo: Alive Coverage.

“Our lawyers have told us not to say anything, but I just…” Healy’s voice trailed off before the band launched into “It’s Not Living (If it’s Not With You).” It was a theme of the night, a focus on the music, with no headline-making extracurriculars that would draw all the attention the next day.

“You wanna sing it?” Healy asked, letting the crowd do the heavy lifting on opening verse until the band joined.

“This goes out to anybody who identifies as emo,” he said before acoustic power ballad “I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes).”

A final performance of “Give Yourself a Try” and “People” would close the book on the 2023 iteration of the festival.