Last year, the vibes were certifiably not such at Malaysia's Good Vibes Festival. After the 1975's Matty Healy kissed bandmate Ross MacDonald on stage during their set (among other things), the remainder of the event was cancelled — and the band was on the hook for financial damages totalling upward of $2.3 million USD, with organizers Future Sound Asia claiming the cancellation left the fest in "financial ruin."
UPDATE (2/25, 11:12 a.m. ET): As per the Associated Press, a judge ruled yesterday (February 24) that the 1975 band members cannot be personally held liable for the festival's losses.
The band's attorney, Edmund Cullen, had argued that the lawsuit was an "illegitimate, artificial and incoherent" attempt "to pin liability on individuals," as Future Sound Asia only had a contract with the band's company, the 1975 Productions LLP.
In court, Judge William Hansen said the claims against the band were "bad as a matter of law" and that "there is no good reason why the matter should go to trial." He did, however, allow the case to proceed against the 1975's company, but ordered Future Sound Asia to cover $126,000 USD in legal costs.
Sure enough, Variety reports that the 1975 and all of its members have now been sued for $2.4 million. Documents filed in the UK High Court claim that the band and their team were all well aware of the numerous prohibitions they would have to abide by in order to perform (and were reminded multiple times), pointing to a previous 1975 performance at Good Vibes in 2016. They agreed to the rules and were paid $350,000 to perform.
Among these prohibitions were swearing, smoking and drinking on stage, removing clothing, and discussing politics or religion, as well as further guidelines from the Malaysia Central Agency for the Application for Foreign Filming and Performance by Foreign Artistes (PUSPAL) which included a ban on "kissing, kissing a member of the audience or carrying out such actions among themselves." PUPSAL also initially rejected the 1975's application to perform, citing an article from 2018 about Healy's drug addiction and subsequent recovery, but agreed once the band appealed the rejection and promised the frontman would adhere to "all local guidelines and regulations."
He is now being accused of drinking alcohol, acting "in a drunken way," smoking cigarettes and "appear[ing] to vomit on the stage and/or grunt and spit excessively including towards the audience," in addition to delivering a "profanity-laden speech" and deliberatively damaging a hired video drone — which, let's face it, all sounds pretty par for the course of a Healy performance.
According to the filing, the 1975 allegedly decided the night before their set that they "should not perform at the music festival." Instead of pulling out of the event, Future Sound Asia claims the band decided to play "a completely different setlist" and "act in a way intended to breach the Guidelines" in protest, including Healy making a "provocative speech" and taking part in a "long pretend passionate embrace" with Ross MacDonald "with the intention of causing offence and breaching the regulations and the terms of the agreement."
The group were ordered by PUSPAL officers to stop their performance following the kiss, at which point Healy was "very aggressive" toward them, "swearing at them and others" before being restrained by his managers. Although the singer has claimed that he was "briefly imprisoned" by Malaysian authorities, the lawsuit alleges that the band and their management "rushed to their hotels" immediately after leaving the festival and left the country first thing the next morning, aware that they had breached the law.
The next day, Future Sound Asia's license was revoked, forcing them to cancel the remaining two days of the music festival. Malaysia has strict anti-homosexuality laws, with potential prison sentences of up to 20 years for those charged.