It’s no secret that the response to Harry Styles’s latest album, Kiss All The Time, Disco Occasionally, has been as muddled as the album’s title. Lead single "Aperture" brought a tentative, exploratory kind of excitement, but the album itself (released March 6) received mixed reviews, with star ratings hovering between three and four. The album’s chart performance was disappointing relative to other Harry Styles albums; its lead singles dropped out of the charts’ top spot within a week (As It Was, by comparison, stayed at No.1 for ten weeks). Tickets to his mammoth residencies – 12 nights at Wembley, 30 at New York’s Madison Square Garden – were snapped up and then resold, with some fans unconvinced by Styles’s new, more dance-focused sound.
But this album was a seed planted in live music spaces, fuelled by Styles’s recent Eurotrip adventures in Berlin and Rome, where he befriended countless dancefloors, aided by the anonymity and phone-free policies of techno clubs. So it’s only fitting that it would properly bloom when performed on stage. In the Standard’s original review of KATTDO (an annoying but necessary acronym), we pointed out how these songs were bound to come alive when played to a crowd, and Styles was clear that he had crafted this record with that in mind. (People have doubted Harry Styles before: lest we forget, this is a man who didn’t just survive the hazardous journey from boy band member to solo artist, but has become the blueprint for said path, far eclipsing the likes of Justin Timberlake and Robbie Williams.)
This was absolutely the case at the Johan Cruijff Arena in Amsterdam this Saturday, where the first night of Styles’s Together, Together tour breathed new life into the album. Styles’s MO is clear from the start: a short video plays, showing the 32-year-old star walking through a woodland, as a woman’s voice asks overhead: “Harry, are you coming out tonight?” (This voice is reportedly Harry’s friend Carla, of “Carla’s Song”, who appears to be a driving force behind Harry’s recent club rat era). The conspiratorial whispers and drums of Are You Listening Yet soundtrack Styles’s arrival onto the stage, where he bounds across the expansive runways and leads the crowd in chanting the song’s protest anthem-esque chorus.
Anyone unconvinced by the KATTDO opener was immediately assuaged by a quadruple-whammy of Golden, Adore You, Watermelon Sugar and Music for a Sushi Restaurant, getting even the most reticent participant to give up their grievances and sing along. There was more newness with Taste Back and Coming Up Roses, which is undeniably charming live, even if it feels quite out of place on the album. Though the real ballad moment comes during Fine Line, the emotionally bare, oddly triumphant final track of Styles’s excellent sophomore album, and it slightly puts the immediate predecessor to shame.
There’s a slightly odd transition afterwards as Styles uses new song Italian Girls to segway into American Girls, but the energy is back up afterwards, with Keep Driving, Ready Steady Go and Dance No More all proving to be very effective at enthralling the crowd. There were never any cobwebs to shake off, but Styles is certainly having a more visibly good time by the time he gets to Treat People With Kindness and Pop. He reminds fans of the album’s ethos towards the end of the show, telling them, “This is about being open to people,” adding, “To put your phone down and go out for a night can change your life. It changed mine.”
It’s the final four songs that seal the deal: Aperture, which is as good live as anyone could have predicted (screaming “We belong together” alongside tens of thousands of people was always going to go down well), fan favourite Harry’s House track Matilda, Sign of the Times, and As It Was. He rounds it all off by doing several celebratory laps of the massive stage, putting all that marathon training to good use.
By the time the show ends, it feels like the crowd has just attended the first two hours of a raucous party and then been told to go home, high and dry. No one wants to leave. The lights come up, a Bill Evans track is played in full, and still revellers drag their feet, gab in groups, cling to people they have only just met, reluctant to call time on the night. Which, to be fair, is exactly what Styles wanted. People may have had doubts about the new album, but you can’t doubt Styles’s prowess on stage. He’s a professional athlete in performing, and he’s clearly put in the work to make this tour memorable. Sorry to anyone who sold their tickets, but that’s the price you pay for doubting a good time.
