Amsterdam, one of the more low-key of Europe’s great cities, is an unlikely place to launch a tour as hotly anticipated as Harry Styles’ long-awaited “Together Together” global trek — especially when he’s only performing shows in one city per continent for this entire year — and walking around the city on this chilly May weekend, it was obvious just how much he’s done for local tourism. One was as likely to hear British or American accented English as Dutch on the city’s streets, and when Styles asked the crowd mid-show, “How many of you are *not from Amsterdam?,” the roar was approximately three times as loud as when he’d asked for the locals moments earlier.
Which is not to say the audience wasn’t screaming for the entire show, because they were. As he must have expected, the response to his unexpectedly low-key latest album, “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally.,” has been less fanatical than that of his previous albums — which, to be fair, is a very high bar. But the songs grow much bigger in a live setting, as his songs often do. In large part that’s down to his versatile and deeply professional band, which has grown to some 18 musicians at certain points during the show (when the 10-piece core group is joined by an eight-member string section). But of course, it’s mostly down to him.
Styles is a one-in-several-million performer, unusually warm and charismatic, communicating an almost irresistible joyfulness in his loose-limbed, stumbly dancing, and in the positivity of the things he says to the crowd between songs — messages about togetherness and respect and sensitivity to others, about the love of music and dancing, nothing terribly profound if written down, but in his voice, and in this context, undeniably powerful.
In terms of pacing, the goal seemed to be to ease the audience into the new material. The show opened with a video of Styles walking through a garden and getting a phone call, as he does on the new album, with a woman’s voice asking, “Harry, are you coming out tonight?” From there, the giant video screens light up with animated images before the band kicks in and styles, clad in sneakers, black slacks and a red leather jacket, launches into “Are You Listening Yet” from the new album. By the end of the first verse, he was halfway down one of the illuminated walkways that encircled nearly the entire floor of the almost 70,000-capacity stadium, giving him maximum contact with the crowd.
But he followed with four of his fans’ most beloevd hits: “Golden,” “Adore You,” “Watermelon Sugar” and “Music for a Sushi Restaurant.” A pair of new songs followed, and he concluded “What we like to call act one of the show” with a gentle version of “the song we used to end the set with, but now it feels more like a beginning”: the title track of his second album, “Fine Line.” For the rest of the show, he promised “we’ll be dancing.”
The group eased into a new, mostly instrumental clubby song called “Italian Girls” before launching into “American Girls,” and from there it was almost entirely songs from the new album, many of them in energized arrangements. But what elevated them was the delivery: for two tracks, technicians moved instruments to the middle walkway and the entire band performed there, with Styles joined by two dancers for “Treat People With Kindness” and “Pop.” He talked with the crowd at length, addressing people holding signs, helping one named Theresa who couldn’t find her mother — “Theresa’s mum, are you here?” and she waved almost immediately; “That was so easy!,” Styles laughed. Another audience member named Jana said it was her birthday, so he led the entire crowd in a “Happy Birthday” singalong.
The main set wound down with two more songs “Disco, Occasionally” songs, “Carla’s Song” and “Aperture,” before the lights paused, signaling the crowd that the encore was coming. The full band — including string players — took their positions and Styles played “Matilda” and a soaring “Sign of the Times,” drawing out the chorus to epic length. He finished with what is probably his most joyful song, “As It Was,” showing off his well-publicized endurance as a runner by tearing down the walkways at full speed before walking slowly off the stage as the band vamped on the chorus. And with that, the show was over.
Styles will be on tour for the rest of this year — with multiple concerts in London, Brazil, Mexico, Australia and a whopping 30 shows at Madison Square Garden — and, sources say, well into next. It’s a lot to live up to — but on the basis of opening night in Amsterdam, Styles will be playing to ecstatic crowds for much longer than that.
