Harry Styles took a break from his record-smashing run at London’s Wembley Stadium on Tuesday night to do something the pop star has never done before: perform with a full orchestra.
From the start, the one-off show seemed quite the opposite from Styles’ current modus operandi: his latest album “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally” saw him lean into dance-pop and synthesizers, and Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall is about 50 times smaller than Wembley with just 2,000 seats. But as the curator of this year’s Meltdown Festival, Styles took the opportunity to completely reimagine his music with conductor Jules Buckley and his 50-piece orchestra — and the result left fans awestruck.
After the orchestra shuffled in and Styles took a seat at a piano near center stage, looking smart in a floral collared shirt and slacks, the crowd predictably went nuts. But a hush soon fell over the audience as the realization set in that no one knew what was about to happen — there was no previous setlist to go off of, no indication as to how his songs would be arranged or how many he would even sing. As the orchestra began to play, it was at first difficult to recognize which song it was since it sounded so different, but then Styles sang the first word: “Boyfriends.”
