For the first time at a gig, I spent much of Harry Styles’s show thinking about the maths. He’s cunningly doing his 68 shows in seven cities, with 12 of them at Wembley Stadium, which means he has transferred a significant amount of the costs of touring to the fans. In other ways fans are rewarded.
As is common when stars play stadiums, Styles spent little time on the main stage. Instead he peddled his wares from a series of walkways – around 350 yards of them, apparently – stretching way out into the crowd, along which he remained in near-constant movement. That meant an awful lot of people got to be at the barrier. At an estimate there were maybe 20,000 people who got within a few feet of Styles. That’s as many people as fit in the whole O2.
Clever. Because what Styles offers above all else is vibes. There are no big dance routines; no grand theatrics. What there is choreographically all comes down to what Styles does himself. It’s enough. He moves beautifully: loose and confident, throwing a few shapes, a couple of dance steps. He’s not particularly voluble between songs, his voice is nothing out of the ordinary. All he’s selling is himself: I’m Harry and I make everything better.
