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Photo: Netflix
“I’ve been Harry; it’s been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me back.” The ever charming Harry Styles, Grammy winner and ex-One Direction-er, road tests his new album and plays a clutch of choice hits in One Night in Manchester, a standalone Netflix concert special shot at Co-Op Live Arena, and the cryptic worldwide messages that heralded the arrival of Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally, his grammatically cheeky fourth studio album, resurface as he stands in the wings. Styles made the thing, he says in a brief voiceover, “at a pivotal moment in my life.” It’s been three years since his last record and tour. It’s time to show the new thing off. Harry Styles checks his David Bowie-ish look in the mirror. “We belong together…”
HARRY STYLES: ONE NIGHT IN MANCHESTER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: The quavery keyboard pulse of “Aperture,” the Kiss All the Time opener, surges in the arena, and Harry Styles’ “Someone Great” meets slinky loverman era is officially out in the world. The stage is in the center, with short thrusts off most sides, and Styles gets his first big hand of the night when he repairs to his keyboard and effects rig to put tweaks on “Aperture” and its follow-up, “American Girls.” They’re doing the track list straight through, and the album is an early March release, so this is the new shit for many in the audience. But watching One Night, you mostly wouldn’t know that. The Harry heads? The Harry-ites? Apparently they’re just known as “the Harries.” But the fans don’t stop cheering for their boy, and Styles gives a few heartfelt speeches to his home supporters.
This performance being one night only also contributes to a kind of rawness with the camera, which is often at stage-level as it captures Styles through a mess of microphone stands and cables, or on his shoulder as he sings, where it suddenly goes wide to capture him with grouped gospel singers. There are also a lot of peppy bass lines in the Kiss All the Time stuff, like they’re propelling the early 2000s New York scene forward into time, where Styles then smooths chippier edges with stylized romance. In One Night, Harry’s so hyped to get to the bounce of “Season 2 Weight Loss” that he forgets how many outs there are and introduces it early.
As the set moves through the new album, which also blends in chamber musicians and Harry Styles in reflective close-up at his electric piano, it can’t not also give those gathered and those who will stream it a bit of the classic mode. After his band crests on a War on Drugs groove for “Carla’s Song,” they move into an encore that includes “Golden,” “As it Was,” and “Watermelon Sugar.” Hits all the time, in addition to Kiss all the Time and Disco, Occasionally.
Photo: NetflixWhat Movies Will It Remind You Of? Not everybody’s gonna buy a ticket for Harry Styles’ next sold-out tour, so One Night in Manchester offers a nice value. But with its one-off nature, it’s also like, hey, you deserve a little treat. The same concept applies to An Audience with Kylie, which like One Night in Manchester features the House Gospel Choir, as well as An Evening With Dua Lipa.
Performance Worth Watching: Styles has a great band with him for One Night, including Laura Bibbs and Lorren Chiodo, whose layers of trumpet, flute, and supporting vocals add a lot of warmth to the live sound.
Sex and Skin: What is the look? The application of the Styles council? For One Night in Manchester, the singer’s rocking pleated high-waist pants, a black dress shirt with little white flowers, a wide purple tie, and a blue sweatshirt to cover the whole thing. The hairstyle of Styles? We’ll call it a mullet, articulated.
Photo: NetflixOur Take: Earlier this year, when Lady Gaga dropped her Harlequin Live: One Night Only concert film onto YouTube without much fanfare, the project harvested some energy off feeling like a fun, weird one-off which only happened to feature a worldwide pop star. Harry Styles isn’t sneaking up on anyone with One Night in Manchester, which first appeared as a kind of live event for Netflix. But like Harlequin, this show to announce his new record is powered in part by a transference of vibes between the big star and his biggest fans. During “Are You Listening Yet?”, when Styles exhorts the crowd to enjoy themselves, to dance, and to sing along if they happen to know the words to a just-released song, they absolutely erupt. They were waiting for their Harry to come back.
No wonder he’s got another slate of international dates set to begin. No wonder it features him playing 30 straight nights at Madison Square Garden. Styles responds to that adulation and energy throughout One Night, especially during the dance-punk lite of “Ready, Steady, Go!” and in “Season 2 Weight Loss,” where he does a lot of dancing on his own during what becomes a solid instrumental showcase for the band. There is also a continuing sense of the new material as road test – Styles notes more than once that they won’t play this stuff straight through, once out on tour. But that lends some unpredictability to the set, which isn’t over-produced with a lot of lighting cues and pyrotechnics. It would be cool to see Styles and his band also do a One Night in Manchester-style one-off following their next run of live dates. See what has changed in their performance. On this night anyway, what they’re locked into looks and sounds like joy.
Our Call: Stream It. Harry Styles: One Night in Manchester debuts the pop star’s first record since the multiple Grammy-winning Harry’s House, and does it in buoyant style, with a new rush of dance beats to meet Styles’ name-brand touch on a romantic ditty.
Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.
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