It was easy to think the opening date of Harry Styles’ 30-date Madison Square Garden residency would be business as usual for the superstar. He’d already completed dozens of headlining shows in Amsterdam, London, São Paulo, and Mexico City, and his last residency at The Garden cemented him as one of the most treasured live acts of his generation. I mean, he literally walked from Brooklyn to Midtown Manhattan for soundcheck. Nothing says “just another Wednesday” like casually walking to work on a warm summer day.
Any suspicion of Styles phoning it in, though, was laid to rest within the first few seconds of his show. He was opening with “Dance No More,” a change-up from his earlier shows, which usually began with “Are You Listening Yet?”. Despite Styles wearing a dotted Oxford shirt and a sharp white tie, this was not just another day at the office for him. It was something closer to the first day of a fresh school year, bringing a brand new set and providing a charming reintroduction to Styles the Entertainer.
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It makes sense that he’d use opening night to try out some new tricks, given that he’ll be performing three times a week at the famed venue until November. Part of why Styles has opted for a residency-style tour is to give fans a more intimate, intentional experience; on Wednesday night, that meant presenting a handful of tour debuts and letting the energy feel unpredictable. Styles dusted off fan-favorites “Carolina” (a song he has only performed twice since 2018, both of which were at Coachella ’22), “Cinema,” “Satellite,” and “Kiwi” for the first time during this residency run. He even had his band do “Sweet Creature” from his first album, another beloved rarity. His backup vocalists sounded so glorious on the rendition that they pretty much outshined Styles, who didn’t come out soaring on the mic within the first few songs and worked his way up to big vocal moments (more on that later).
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The reception was rapturous. “How about that bass?” Styles asked the crowd with a cheeky smile as “Dance No More” unfolded. “How about that mix?” Though the setlist order was heavily rearranged, the evening was still predominantly a showcase for Styles’ latest album, Kiss All the Time, Disco, Occasionally. Eleven of its 12 tracks were played, and certain tracks popped more in a live setting than others (pun intended). The middle third of the show was back-to-back standouts from the new project, with “Are You Listening Yet?”, “Ready, Steady, Go,” “Pop,” and “Season 2 Weight Loss” all bringing some urgency and energy to the set. But other tracks like “The Waiting Game,” “Taste Back,” and, honestly, “American Girls,” were much less dynamic in a live context and forced Styles to rely more on his innate charm.
Harry Styles, photo by Anthony Pham
Like the highlights of Kiss All the Time, the best moments of the show came with higher stakes, with more vibrancy and more risk. The second half of “Satellite,” which found the live band crashing in to disrupt a rather low-key groove, was enthralling. “Season 2 Weight Loss,” one of the new album’s best songs, was even more enjoyable, with Styles and the band harnessing the song’s jagged rhythm but still playing loud. Given a great opening set from Jamie xx — who provided a career-spanning DJ set that, for lack of a better word, ripped — it was also great to see Styles lean into his inner DJ and lose himself in the groove. Closing song “Aperture” found him doing exactly that, opening the track with an extended mix and letting it bloom into focus.
“Aperture” was also a more fitting closer than the usual climax, “As It Was.” It was almost love-drunk in its presentation, the refrain’s open-hearted assessment of “we belong together” ringing out in the arena like it was a church. The last outing had Styles stressing, via song and message, to “Treat People with Kindness;” this one felt less concerned with explicitly preaching peace and love, with Styles scaling back the banter to let the joyous songs speak for themselves, and mostly expressing gratitude to again be performing at MSG.
