Harry Styles live in Manchester review: An almighty dance party
Kicking off a new era in Manchester, Harry Styles proves why he's one of modern pop's most exciting and entertaining forces.
By Nick Reilly
Moments before Harry Styles arrives on stage, Elvis Presley’s thunderous ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ cover is the last song played over speakers to the 23,500 people gathered in Manchester’s Co-Op Live.
It would be understandably amiss to compare the 32-year-old to the King himself, but the genuinely ear-splitting screams that greet his arrival shortly after 9PM certainly go some way in rivalling those of pop’s all time greats.
The reason is simple: this “One Night Only” £20-a-ticket concert show is the true launch party for his fourth album Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally, released earlier in the day, and the world’s most in-demand pop star is here to play it in full. Over the 90 minutes that follow, it’s a chance for Styles to kick off this intriguing new era in a way that makes perfect sense.
Things kick off with the booming house of ‘Aperture’, the track which birthed this era and saw some scratching their heads after it became clear that Harry Styles had, well, made a dance track. The reality is that, when played live, it becomes clear that this is one of the greatest things he’s ever done. Tonight’s showing sees him intriguingly noodling with some synths in an extended intro. We’re reluctant to say Harry Again.., ahem, but you get the idea.
He largely lets the music do the talking for the rest of the show, but repeatedly makes it clear how much the occasion means to him with a commendable earnestness. “I rediscovered what a privilege it is to be in people’s lives through music,” he stresses at one point.
A feeling further cemented tonight, no doubt, when his fans seemingly know every lyric of an album which is less than 24 hours old. The weepy ‘Coming Up Roses’ is a particularly touching moment, while new bangers such as ‘Dance No More’ see his fans screaming the admittedly nonsensical lyric of ‘RESPECT YOUR MOTHER!’ back to him. In fact, the quality of the lyrics on Styles’ latest have been widely criticised across the board, but the fact of the matter is that it certainly doesn’t matter tonight, where every song is remarkably treated like the newest of old friends.
Once Styles finishes the record and returns for a flawless run of bangers – ‘From The Dining Table,’ ‘Golden,’ ‘Watermelon Sugar,’ and ‘As It Was’, you find yourself realising that he might just be pop’s modern ultimate showman.
“In a world we have today that feels so chaotic, it’s easy to become hopeless,” he says, in a heartfelt speech before a closing rendition of ‘Sign Of The Times’. “I encourage you to keep being the change in the world you want to see.”
Few could argue with that statement about the state of the world, but it’s testament to Styles’ music and magnetic performance that, for 90 minutes at least, you feel like you’ve been transported to one of the wildest dance parties on the planet. When Wembley Stadium beckons in the summer, it will feel out of this world.