Harry Styles - Harryween - Live at Madison Square Garden [Saturday, 10/30/21] [Review]

Flashback to spring of 2020 (nearly two years ago now), my best friend and I made plans to see Harry Styles in New York City on Friday, October 30, but shortly after that, the COVID-19 problem was declared a pandemic, and the show was eventually postponed to the same date but in 2021. It was disappointing news but also understandable, and Harry was definitely worth the wait! The show was at Madison Square Garden (my first show at the venue, although the venue was very similar to the Barclays Center where I saw Madonna in 2015), and my friend and I were shocked to see how packed the show was. It was sold out (which makes sense not only because of how popular that Harry is but also because of the long delay, giving people more time to purchase tickets), and the line (even though we arrived fairly early) was wrapped around several blocks. It seemed to just go on and on, and one point, I even remember thinking, Surely, this many people can't even fit inside the building. As I said, however, I had never been to MSG so didn't really know what to expect. What was most perplexing to us, though, was how quickly the line had formed. When we first hit up MSG, there was no one there, so we hit up a nearby bakery / coffee shop to kill some time. When we returned to Madison Square Garden, however, the never-ending line was there even though not much time had passed (maybe 30-45 minutes). Opening for him was Madison Cunningham (whom we missed entirely because with the line being as long as it was, they did not open the doors early enough) and Orville Peck. I had not heard of Madison Cunningham before, but I was and am a fan of Orville, whose style of country music is akin to old-school country music like Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, and Johnny Cash. I was kind of disappointed by how short his set was, however; it was only seven songs, and he didn't play my favorite song of his - "Roses Are Falling."

Something that surprised me about the concert is that there wasn't really all that long of a wait after Orville Peck finished his set before Harry Styles came on, or at least it didn't feel all that long. Our seats weren't fantastic. We were up fairly high in the arena and had a side view of the stage, but there were big screens around the arena that showed you video footage of the stage, so I guess that it didn't matter much. The crowd went wild when Harry took to the stage, as you can probably imagine, especially since, with it being Harryween, he was dressed as Dorothy Gale from The Wizard of Oz, blue and white dress and ruby red slippers and all. His entire band, in fact, was dressed as characters from The Wizard of Oz, and it was just wonderful. He opened with "Golden," the opening track from his second studio album, Fine Line, and then gave us the playful and jaunty "Carolina" from the first (self-titled) album. "Adore You" then came next which honestly surprised me because with it being such a huge hit, I expected it to be closer to the end if not the encore. The crowd went crazy when the hits started playing, but then again, the crowd went crazy for just about every single song. (Harry, after all, has always had very excited, very passionate fans, ever since his days with One Direction.) The show soon dialed it down several notches with a few sad songs - "To Be So Lonely," "Cherry," "She," and "Falling," but this was honestly one of my favorite segments of the concert, especially during "Cherry" because several times throughout the song, Harry was choking up and wiping tears away. The song (as is likely a good deal of Fine Line) is said to be about his ex-girlfriend Camille Rowe, and you could definitely tell from how emotional and vulnerable that he got during this performance that that split really did a number on him. "Falling" is one of my favorite songs of Harry's, so I was so happy that he performed that one, and I especially love that he started it with a snippet of "Two Ghosts" (leading one to wonder if maybe both songs are about the same person).

Harry then brought the energy back up with "Lights Up" which was another emotional aspect of the concert because, with the song widely believed to be about Harry addressing his bisexuality, someone had somehow arranged to have different colored pieces of paper distributed around the crowd (I think that ours were orange) that we shone cell phone flashlights through so that the crowd created a rainbow wave, and it was absolutely beautiful. He then did two more songs from Fine Line, but before he did that, he did something to which I have to call attention because of how serendipitous that it was. October 30, 2021 was actually my best friend's thirtieth birthday, and there was another young woman present who was also celebrating her thirtieth birthday that day to whom Harry sang "Harry Birthday to You." (I guess that she was holding up a sign stating that it was her birthday, and Harry saw it.) This must have been the part of the show where he did some extended interaction with the crowd because a few shows later on this tour (titled Love on Tour), this spot is where he helped a fan come out to her mother. He then went into "Canyon Moon," and I loved this rendition of it because it was a tad more upbeat than the album version, featuring an extra beat. That then quickly segued into "Treat People with Kindness" which made me so happy because that is one of my absolute favorite songs of his. Harry's peppy energy throughout the show was infectious, as he frequently skipped across the stage, arms swinging side to side as he did so, and his energy was definitely on blast during this song. He also waved a rainbow flag on stage at one point during the song, and my heart was just so happy. We then got what I am sure some fans had been waiting all night for. Harry, after all, can't go an entire concert without honoring his roots, so he had to do a One Direction song, and naturally, he chose the band's biggest hit. While I am not a huge 1D fan (I have tried over and over again to be one, but I just can't), there are a handful of songs that I do really love, with "What Makes You Beautiful" not necessarily being one of them, so it wouldn't have been the 1D song that I would have chosen, but I digress.

The remainder of the concert was technically an encore, but the time had gone by so quickly that I thought that it was an intermission and that he was doing a costume change, so I was surprised when he came back on the stage still dressed as Dorothy. This was my absolute favorite part of the show for two reasons - (1) this is where he played "Sign of the Times," my favorite song of his, and (2) he segued "Sign of the Times" into an absolutely beautiful cover of "Over the Rainbow," obviously fitting given his costume. It's such a beautiful song with beautiful lyrics as it is, but Harry's raw and heartfelt voice made it even more so, and I got emotional, especially with it coming off the emotional high of "Sign of the Times." Following this is when he played a more recent hit, "Watermelon Sugar." This song and "Adore You" are definitely the two biggest hits from Fine Line, so I definitely expected one or the other to be part of the encore, but what surprised me is that he didn't close with "Watermelon Sugar" but instead closed with "Kiwi," although there are certainly no complaints from me because "Kiwi" is one of my favorite tracks from Harry Styles. It made for a great closer because it's one of his heavier, more rock-oriented songs, so it closed the show on a high-energy note. Harry then appropriately clasped his ruby red slippers together three times and exited the stage, ending the concert, and I was initially under the impression that there was no encore because I didn't realize that everything from "Sign of the Times" on was the encore. I don't have much to say in the way of complaints about this show, but I do have a couple. (1) My three favorite songs of Harry's are "Sign of the Times," "Treat People with Kindness," and "Sunflower, Vol. 6," so I was really disappointed that he didn't play "Sunflower, Vol. 6," but hey, two out of three isn't bad. (2) I was hoping that he would play "Medicine" (fellow fans of Harry will likely understand why), and he did not; he did, however, play it on the second night of Harryween, and when I discovered that, I thought, Really? All in all, however, I had the time of my life at this show, and it was definitely, as I said previously, worth the wait!

Setlist:

1. Golden
2. Carolina
3. Adore You
4. Only Angel
5. To Be So Lonely
6. Cherry
7. She
8. Two Ghosts / Falling
9. Lights Up
10. Happy Birthday to You
11. Canyon Moon
12. Treat People with Kindness
13. What Makes You Beautiful
14. Sign of the Times
15. Over the Rainbow
16. Watermelon Sugar
17. Kiwi