The 1975 vocalist Matty Healy. Photo Credit: pitpony.photography
Future Sound Asia, the company behind Malaysia’s Good Vibes Festival, is reportedly preparing to take legal action against The 1975 unless the group coughs up over £2 million (currently $2.54 million) in allegedly owed damages during the coming days.
Additional details about Future Sound Asia’s compensation claims just recently came to light, after the 22-year-old event agency (complying with a government order) pulled the plug on last month’s Good Vibes Festival. Organizers cited “controversial conduct and remarks” made on-stage by The 1975’s Matty Healy when nixing the happening’s remaining two days and, in turn, a number of scheduled performances.
Meanwhile, the four-piece act was banned by the Malaysian government from performing in the nation of about 34 million, and in a letter of claim, Future Sound Asia maintained that The 1975 had “intentionally contravened” the terms of the performance agreement at hand. Sought damages, though not defined with a precise amount at the time, would help cover attendee refunds, production costs, and more, the promoter indicated.
Adjacent to the latter, local acts (who weren’t paid in full pre-festival like international artists) and vendors who were relying on Good Vibes income are spearheading class-action litigation against The 1975, according to Rolling Stone.
And per a new report from the same outlet, The 1975 now has until Monday, August 14th, to pay Future Sound Asia the initially mentioned RM12.3 million (£2.11 million at present).
“The claim against The 1975 is essentially for breach of contract,” explained Steven Thiru & Sudhar Partnership attorney David Mathew, whose last name, despite being misspelled as “Matthew” by nearly all stateside outlets, contains one “t.” “They entered into a binding contract with Future Sound Asia to perform and the position of Future Sound Asia, among others, is that this contractual obligation was breached.
“Further, Mr. Healy’s representative categorically provided a pre-show written assurance that Mr. Healy and The 1975’s live performance ‘shall adhere to all local guidelines and regulations’ during their set in Malaysia. Unfortunately, the assurance was ignored,” finished Mathew.
At the time of this writing, neither The 1975 nor Matty Healy appeared to have publicly addressed the multimillion-dollar damages demand – though Healy has spoken to the media about the Good Vibes incident itself. (Separately, YouTubers have interviewed Malaysians for their take on the episode and the resulting fallout.)
Worth noting in conclusion is that most reports on the matter feature only a portion of the lengthy comments made by Healy, who had a beverage in hand while delivering some of the remarks.
“I feel bad for you guys. … I made a mistake,” Healy said. “When we were booking shows I wasn’t looking into it, in them. I don’t see the f—king 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. And I’m sorry if that offends you, if you’re religious, or it’s part of your f—king government. But your government are a bunch of f—king retards.
“And I don’t care anymore. If you push, I’m going to push back. I’m not in the f—king mood. I’m not in the f—king mood. If you’re filming this on TikTok, I’m not in the f—king mood anymore. I saw a TikTok the other day where I picked up a child, that I love, who’s a friend of mine. A friend of mine’s child. And I put them down. And there was a TikTok conversation as to whether my finger placement was appropriate. So what, we’re just casually accusing people of being a pedophile now, are we, for entertainment? Is that what we’re doing? No? It f—king looks like it.
“I’m not having a go at you, there’s people filming this. It f—king looks like it. You don’t casually insinuate that s—t. I’m not in the f—king mood anymore. Unfortunately, you don’t get a set of loads of uplifting songs, because I’m f—king furious. And that’s not fair on you, because you’re not representative of your government.
“Cus you’re young people, and I’m sure a lot of you are gay and progressive and cool. So I pulled the show yesterday. I pulled the show yesterday. And we had a conversation. And we said, ‘You know what? We can’t let the kids down, because they’re not the government.’ But I’ve done this before. I’ve gone to a country where it’s – I don’t know what it f—king is. Ridiculous, f—king ridiculous, to tell people what they can do with that and that [pointing to his crotch and mouth, respectively].
“And if you want to invite me here to do a show, you can f—k off. I’ll take your money, you can ban me, but I’ve done this before and it doesn’t feel good. And I’m f—ked off,” finished Healy, proceeding to kiss bassist Ross MacDonald and then dive into a performance of “I Like America & America Likes Me.”
