An epic night for Harry Styles

The Love on Tour concert in Portugal has sold out for months, and has brought in more than 20 songs, in celebration of the audience and singer.

Sparkling, festive atmosphere, deafening all the time. There are many possible adjectives to describe what happened at the Altice Arena in Lisbon, this Sunday, in Harry Styles’ first solo appearance in Portugal, but few really sum up what really happened. It was one of the most anticipated concerts of recent years in Portugal, and the former One Direction member, now living an impressive solo career, did justice to his credits.

It must be remembered that the anticipation surrounding the event was enormous. Love on Tour has been on sale for months, and has been postponed twice, creating an almost unprecedented movement for ticket demand. Motivated by teenage sons and daughters, desperate parents have spent the past few weeks trying to find final tickets – those who couldn’t gather outside the Altice Arena on Sunday, waiting for possible withdrawals or refunds, but there could have been a few dozen who are they. Lucky, JN told on-site security. Fans paid almost 200 euros for private seats, and others went to the stand very early, under the scorching sun. There were flags, colorful scarves, T-shirts, posters and statements.

However, it has been noted in Lisbon, that it is not only teenagers that the biggest and most faithful patterns are followed. There were a lot of young people in the audience, yes, One Direction fans, right – sheer hysteria with which one of the group’s themes played in the columns before welcoming the concert, if there was any doubt. But there was a lot. It’s a whole phenomenon, which includes ardent parents, and fans of all kinds – after One Direction, in the halftime columns, the Kings of Lyon were met with almost equal hysteria, as was “Bohemian Rhapsody”, which sang incredibly well from end to end. Crowded room, including children and teens. The Altis was a sea of ​​people of all ages, husbands, whole families, pregnant women; From groups of friends, new and recent, from foreigners.

Styles, 28, accumulated scores of records and awards, entered 12 minutes late and then went into effect; She started with “Music for a Sushi Restaurant”, accompanied by a five-piece band, two of whom were women – a great drummer and guitarist/keyboard player. They all dress alike, they all dress in pink like the singer. There, the Briton’s phenomenon began to be understood and heard live: in the first subject, it seemed already worth a visit, such as energy, dance, salute, interaction, kisses and winks, to the audience, races, paw. “How are you, Lisbon?” asked the second “Golden”, who was already playing guitar, at a point when the concert was hard to hear, like how much the audience shrieked with the lyrics. “Good evening Lisbon, my name is Harry and welcome to the last concert of the tour,” he said again later. He emphasized this by saying, “I want you to have fun and dance. Feel free to be what you’ve always wanted to be,” then asked the audience to tangle with the person next to them; And even to say “I love you” to the person next to him, the instructions, even if unusual, were carried out on the spot.

The room was made up of allotted places, but not seating: this is because there were chairs for everyone, but few would use them. In each one, a paper heart awaited fans as they arrived, setting the tone for the night and the following theme: “I adore you.” The interaction with the audience was always and even during the songs there were kisses, bows and thanks going on to the ends of the stage. After “Daylight” and “The Cinema”, “Keep On Driving” was the theme of Harry’s new house that draws the musician’s more alternative side, preceding a sonic moment with Matilda. Thanks fans again, he sang it in the central aisle of the stage with two women from the band, and took advantage of the momentum, on the same record and still from the new album, followed by Boyfriends song.

In Lights Up, Harry kisses the audience and wears a scarf and a rainbow flag, symbolizing LGBTQIA+. Then, as is his custom, he gives space to the appearances of the audience, reads the numerous posters with requests and selects one that says “Help me propose”; He passes the microphone to a Portuguese couple, who makes the marriage proposal public, in the middle of the concert. Harry jokes and says that after “celebrating something wonderful, this engagement”, he wants to celebrate his “second favorite thing in Portugal”: right on a “drum roll” he reveals the Bastille de Nata and says in a strong British accent, drawn to the typical sense of humor in the country, that ” These things are unbelievable.”

After love, its causes and other qualities – tolerance and kindness – fall into the next theme which is also the motto of Styles and its followers: “Treat people with kindness.” After touring in One Direction with “What Makes You Beautiful” and also “Late Night Talking”, the artist once again defends how amazing the Portuguese audience is, following up with “Love of My Life”. He then utters the phrase “Thank you Lisbon” as if to leave, but never leaves the stage and picks up the guitar for a rare “Fine Line”, with some fans crying profusely—perhaps because of the theme itself, the surprise, catharsis of the concert or its impending end.

Can you imagine being proposed on the Harry Styles show? What a moment, what a beautiful thing pic.twitter.com/tON4z5qmmA

– Fran || : cop (kiwiftwalls) July 31, 2022

In the encore, Sign of the Times arrived, an important song in Styles’ career: After the breakup of One Direction, the solo debut with this song was a surprise to many, as it was not an easy and hilarious subject but with its time, more intense, almost child among pop music ​, indie and the ’70s – like Styles himself. The song caught the attention of new audiences at the dawn of his solo career and the risk paid off, reaching nearly a billion views on YouTube. Live, it was a stunning new moment, made up of deafening choirs and thousands of lights.

Still in appearance, from the second album “Fine Line”, “Watermelon Sugar” is one of the singer’s other best record-breaking songs, which were received in Lisbon hysteria. This was followed by a quieter, unexpected moment, when Styles called Elie Russell of Wolf Alice, the band from the first part of the concerts of the tour that ended in Lisbon and who never tire of thanking and praising them during the night – a cult indie group also growing in Portugal. With Ellie, he performs “No Hard Feelings,” before the last gig in chameleon mode, first with infectious pop “As it Was” and then again with rock that sounded like something from the 70s, and the mannerisms and dance that led him to be frequently compared to Mick Jagger (including aerial kicks) in ‘Kiwi’.

“Nobody like me knows this is worthless if you don’t come. You changed my life and you changed my life constantly,” he told the audience again at the end, adding, “This isn’t supposed to happen to people like me, it’s only because of you.” On the last night of July, outside the Altice Arena, it was a tropical and heavy night, due to the smell of smoke from the fires near the capital. Inside the room, at an even abrasive temperature, over 15,000 people of all ages, styles, expressions, and tastes, celebrated for about two hours with music, kindness and freedom, letters from a fickle and full artist where energy, gratitude and surrender are undeniable; And where all the broadcast time and the attention of thousands of fans are directed to promoting love and inclusion. Everything in Patterns is peace, tolerance, and gratitude that seems to be real, and he begins to understand why this phenomenon is the target of a study chair at an American university. “It was the best summer of my life,” the singer once said of the tour that ended on Sunday in Lisbon. It was the best night in the lives of the many guys in the room for sure.