Harry Styles at Wembley Stadium Review

For those yet to attend a Harry Styles gig, it’s easy to be sceptical of his drawing power. Twelve nights at Wembley? Oasis and Taylor Swift are left in the mud by the ex-One Direction member who storms through his discography with fireworks and fury. Styles is in great form though this is what you’d expect from a frontman whose residency-style performances have fans commuting to him, rather than him to them. He has turned touring on its head, and for the worse. But the quality of the performance is well worth travelling for. He has a knack for these performances and building a sense of community, as he has done with or without the Together, Together tour. There’s a sense in pop now that everything must detail coming together as one community and collective. Few artists have the discography deep enough and the sincerity necessary to pull this off. Styles does, and his Wembley Stadium show proves it. 

He performed much of his latest album, Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally though the songs are thankfully swept up in the atmosphere of a warmish night in Wembley. None of those tracks have the staying power of his earlier efforts and not just because of their recency. Those ten songs, more than anything, prove the longevity of his previous work and the lacklustre feeling found on his fourth album. That still feels like merely a need to release music to keep the image going than anything necessary or a message needed to communicate to an audience. Styles is an exceptional performer but didn’t sound all that moved on Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally, though here he has the chance to offer audiences a pretty solid understanding of what Together Together really means. Early crowd pleasers Watermelon Sugar and Golden do some heavy lifting there.  

All the best bits come from Fine Line and Harry’s House songs. A bit of Talking Heads’ This Must Be the Place features on Treat People With Kindness and a double bill of Sign of the Times and As It Was closes the show. Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally is an excuse to tour rather than an album worth taking on the road. No wonder these are residencies rather than road trips for Styles. Aperture is a decent cool down for the inevitable encore but the rest of the material, be it Carla’s Song or Pop, feel more like filler than anything else. This is not because these songs are new but simply that they’re not very good. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the feel of a show though and that’s what happens here, the stage Styles continually sprints around doing some heavy lifting for lesser songs.  

Styles has very smartly paired himself with an exceptional collection of musicians and instrumentalists for this show. It means he can make a nod to One Direction on Night Changes / History without giving into pressure from fans to perform one of their songs. Styles has created a space that many pop artists have, a safe spot to listen and learn. But his message, flashy and fun as it is, hardly has depths to it that’ll have you chewing it over on the long ride home. Good fun, all things considered. Styles has a great voice and a strong stage profile that he uses to his advantage here. Pop music has a stifled sort of soppiness to it but he manages to navigate through that and performs well. Together Together is a well-paced show, but it highlights what Styles has already done, not what he will go on to do.