Harry Styles first played Madison Square Garden at 18, as a heartthrob in a little pop quintet called One Direction. In 2012, he was fresh off Britain’s The X Factor and, not long before that, working the counter at W Mandeville Bakery in his native village of Holmes Chapel. He had a name—and an impish smile—ripe for stardom and a taste for skinny jeans. Arriving at the venue, he kissed the floor and marveled: “I made it to Madison Square Garden.”
On Wednesday night, Styles launched a sold-out 30-night residency at MSG, doubling the 15-night Love on Tour stint that earned him a rare-for-musicians banner in 2022 (putting him in the company of just Billy Joel and Phish) and marking the only U.S. stop on his global Together, Together outing in support of his oontz–oontz-filled fourth album, Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally. Fourteen years after geeking out over his MSG debut, Styles, now 32, commanded the storied building with new authority, electricity, and dazzling production value that elevated it above any of the six shows of his I’ve seen before. He traded his aughties ankle-biters for white, micro-dotted, custom Tom Ford suiting (“Ties have replaced boas,” Liz Brown, a photographer shooting Together, Together street style, told me. “The sanitation workers are probably thrilled”), but still managed a feat more golden than any Grammy: holding fast to his boyish sense of wonder.
These days, “I wouldn’t be caught dead kissing the floor with my pathetic immune system,” Styles told the crowd. “However, it is not lost on me what it means to play here.”
Of course, Harry (because we’re parasocially on a first-name basis) isn’t simply playing MSG. He’s dominating the arena, on and off, through “Harryween” (his campy Halloween show) and siren-calling American girls in sequins and Sambas from across the country, their skin stamped with kiss prints. For his own look, Styles has pivoted from Love on Tour’s sparkles to suits by Chanel and Celine that evoke a mix of American Psycho, David Byrne, and Dick Tracy, and after Wednesday night, I’m reading Styles’s private-equity-chic as an extension of his musical evolution. Some shamelessly thirsty fans find Styles excessively clothed (“he needs to remove some garments,” an obsessed friend texted last night, and indeed, squeals erupted when he shed his blazer), but Styles is all grown up and dressing for the job he wants: less bare-chested sex god, more mature electropop presence. Gone were the cheeky audience chats from shows past (save for quickly congratulating a fan who painted her pregnant belly as a disco ball) in favor of fervent turns at the synth board.
His sonically adventurous new album, nicknamed “Kissco,” rules the setlist and crackles live. Among the surprises, however, is a revamped “Kiwi” from Styles’s eponymous debut, funkified with the house beats of LCD Soundsystem’s “Daft Punk Is Playing at My House.” With white lights strobing, Styles artfully muffling his voice on a hand-held mic like a techno Elvis, bandleader Pauli Lovejoy high-kicking, and backup dancers bopping like pogo sticks, the stage-in-the-round exploded into a kinetic, contagious dance party and timeless, transcendent theater: a rapturous rave, the club before closing time, and Styles’s titular disco all melting together, together.
Photo: Anthony Pham
