Kicking off his Wembley run, the former One Direction star has certainly avoided the former boyband member curse
. That’s nearly as many nights as Oasis and Taylor Swift managed between them, which tells you just how successfully Styles has unshackled himself from the ex-boyband member curse.
The 32-year-old had Wembley in the palm of his hand within seconds of strutting onstage to the sounds of Elvis Presley’s version ofhe looked vaguely Teddy Boyish – pinstripe jacket, light blue shirt, black trousers two three inches too short to show off his white socks – and was soon swivelling his hips and commanding the stage with the sort of charisma you’d make a fortune bottling. It was enough to instantly banish all the doubts about his fourth album, the bizarrely titled and grammatically questionable.
It’s a record that was, weirdly, both simultaneously bold and safe, a musical shift into club music and the synth-dance of influential New York band LCD Soundsystem that didn’t go far enough: enjoyable, but a sanitised version of the real thing with somewhat meaningless lyrics. The critics weren’t overly impressed, and his streams – and pop at this level is a numbers game like never before – have been a 10th of his previous peaks.
But the show brought the album to life. With a band that included brass, strings and a choir, tracks from Kiss… sounded harder and fuller, music you could actually dance to. Its lead track,, typified it, managing to negate the album’s problems – the fact it’s nicely done but never takes off like you want it to – with the trite lyrics making a lot more sense when 90,000 people are singing it back.
Even the so-so tracksAt the top of his game, the 32-year-old has confirmed himself as a major solo star Styles was a performer at the top of his game. As ever, he didn’t say much beyond empty platitudes and espousing community – the tour is titled– save a conversation with a girl from Sunderland in the front row about his favourite eggs . He had to do very little to elicit a deafening scream.
But with a huge rectangular runway with a cross section in the middle, he made as good a use of the parameters of a stadium as I’ve seen, working every inch of the walkway to give all corners of Wembley a close-up of their idol. The four-song set on the “X” stage – the centre point of the runway – was brilliant; turning his LCD influence to the max, his band huddled close to produce some fantastic rhymical dance music in the hyperwith its memorable refrain “respect your mother!
” He snuck bits of Paul Simon and Talking Heads into the early hitand there was a certain David Byrne-ness to the choreography as the band danced around the walkway. It was hardly the stuff of boy bands – a concession was made with a string section medley of One Direction hits at the start of the second act – nor was his highlighting a quote on the big screen from David Hockney, who died earlier that day.
It made you think Styles could well be thinking about going further leftfield next time: an indulgent three-minute section where he took to a keyboard to make a squelchy electronic noise was brave but not very Wembley, and lost on many in the crowd.was still sugar sweet and, dispatched second, rapturously received. He took to his guitar to finish with a monumentally epic take on his ballad debut single,, his excitable A-Ha-esque mega hit.
At the song’s end, Styles sprinted around the runway like a man who just scored the winning goal in the World Cup Final. Consider everyone entertained.
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