Harry Styles at Birmingham's Genting Arena - review and pictures
Thousands of fans screamed the night away for Harry Styles as he performed his first UK gig of the year in Birmingham.
The 24-year-old appeared at the Genting Arena last night as part of the European leg of Harry Styles - Live on Tour.
He arrived on stage after support act Mabel, a singer/songwriter based in London known for the song Finders Keepers, and the screams from Styles' fans were ear-splitting as he appeared at around 9pm.
In fact, when Mabel twice mentioned his name, they screamed, when a back stage curtain twitched, they screamed, and when he finally appeared on stage, it was piercing.
The singer was one fifth of One Direction, who went on an indefinite hiatus in 2016, and was propelled to success after appearing on The X Factor in 2010.
Last year he released his self-titled album which topped the charts in several countries.
Styles’ songs are softer than when he was in One Direction, and are more like soft rock than pop.
But one One Direction song did make it into the set and was greeted by even more noise from the fans - most of whom looked like they were dedicated Directioners - and it was not surprising to see most were either teenagers or in their early 20s and female (the odd parent aside).
Styles had a great energetic stage presence and was constantly jumping around the stage, blowing kisses and interacting with the all-too-willing audience.
Even when there was a technical glitch and he ran to a different stage in the middle of the arena and a guitar didn’t work, he styled it out by asking for the lights back on and chatting to the audience before making a joke out of it later.
The music was great in its own right and much different to when he was in One Direction, but it looks like the notoriety has stuck as well as the fans.
At the end of his performance Styles thanked the fans for welcoming him home and chucked a scarf and the contents of a water bottle at his admirers, who screamed and screamed and jumped until it felt like the stalls were going to collapse.
All in all his performance was pretty good, and I came out with my hearing just about intact.
