Harry Styles: Live On Tour | Manchester

If you asked any of my friends who I have been obsessed with over the past eight years, they would straight away say Harry Styles….

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If you asked any of my friends who I have been obsessed with over the past eight years, they would straight away say Harry Styles. I loved him throughout One Direction, and ended up absolutely loving his solo music too. So, of course, I was going to get tickets to his tour, at my nearest location of Manchester!

I was so pleased, after I hadn’t managed to get tickets for his first, smaller tour, that he added more dates in 2018, including Manchester Arena, rather than the much smaller apollo of the first tour, meaning I managed to get tickets this time – in block 114, somewhere I had always wanted to sit in the arena, as I’ve always figured the view would be good of both the stage and if an artist has a B-Stage.

Heading straight to the merch stand, I picked up his photobook, full of lovely polaroids from while he has been on tour and behind the scenes of the Kiwi video, and the Treat People With Kindness hair ties. I had to pick these up as I thought it was so lovely that all the profits of them went to a local charity – you can find where for each location here – and I have been wearing them as wristbands everyday since.

Being a Monday night, I wasn’t sure if the arena would fill up quite as much as it would on, say a Saturday, but why did I doubt the fact it would be completely full. It’s HARRY STYLES. The arena was pretty much full by the time the support act Mabel came on at 8pm. Every time she would mention Harry Styles was coming up next I would almost be in tears, having that realisation that I was finally seeing him live. The last time I saw him was in October 2015, on One Direction’s last tour, and it had been a long wait to see him again.

Harry came onto the stage at just after 9pm, after a little cartoon of him playing with a Rubiks cube played on the screens (I still haven’t quite figured out the significance of this). He began the setlist with Only Angel, in my opinion the perfect way to begin with its intro I can only describe as ‘heavenly’. As the screen lifted up to reveal Harry and his band on the stage, I was definitely crying as I was shouting WE GOT PINK! HE’S WEARING A PINK SUIT! in absolute joy. Wondering what sort of suit he would be wearing was definitely part of the fun, and I was overjoyed at the fact he chose pink for Manchester.

*possibly my personal favourite photo I took…

Of course he played all the songs off the album, including my personal favourite Carolina. I also loved watching him play guitar for more accoustic tracks, including those he sang on the B-Stage, Sweet Creature and One Direction track If I Could Fly. I love that he brought back some One Direction classics, Stockholm Syndrome has always been an all time favourite of mine so I was super excited about that and you can’t go wrong with a bit of What Makes You Beautiful!

He also performed a couple of new songs, Medicine and Anna, which were amazing – I can tell his next solo album is going to be just as amazing. An emotional moment was his cover of Ariana Grande’s Just A Little Bit Of Your Heart, which he actually wrote, and felt really poignant being in Manchester arena. A bunch of fans held up signs in tribute which was really heart-warming and emotional.

He performed the masterpiece Sign Of The Times before going off to prepare for the encore, which sadly meant we were heading to the end of the show. I really think he did save the best until last, as the last song, Kiwi was actually the highlight of my whole night. I had always thought it would be amazing live from my very first listen, and still exceeded all my expectations. The people stood next to me left right at the beginning leaving me with loads of room, so I jumped and danced around as crazy as I could the whole time, singing from the top of my lungs, having the time of my life. It was a truly incredible moment and I never wanted it to end.

It was definitely one of my favourite concerts ever and I can’t wait to see Harry Styles again on his next tour. And the one after that. And you’ll definitely find me at the one after that, too.
 

Have you been to see Harry Styles live on tour? I would love to read your comments about your experience!

EG x