Harry Styles performed his new album ‘Harry’s House’ from start to finish at his ‘One Night Only’ concert — and then tore through his hits.
“This is a very special evening for me, for us,” Harry Styles said to a crowd of nearly 20,000 at the UBS Arena on Friday, and to millions over an Apple Music livestream. “We’re in New York City for one night only, and we’ll be playing this new album for you the way it was intended to be heard: From start to finish.”
And with a giant neon outline of a house behind him, that’s exactly what Styles and his tightly drilled band did: Premiere his just-released third solo album, “Harry’s House,” at a “One Night Only” concert, an arena-sized album release party offered for Styles’ most devoted fans (even if the title was a bit of a misnomer: There’s a similar concert taking place in London next week). At any Styles concert, the devotees trade histories like battle scars. “Which One Direction tour did you see?” “Did you get a ticket to Harryween?” “Are you still friends with the girls you met at Love on Tour?” But despite the concert’s name, scarcity isn’t a quality anyone would attribute to Harry Styles these days: His pandemic-delayed “Love on Tour” rampaged across North America for most of last fall, he headlined Coachella last month, he just dropped a new album, and along the way he’s been a darling of Anna Wintour, muse to Alessandro Michele of Gucci and a boyish face for Christopher Nolan. And with barely a pause, he’s off again, beginning a European tour next month that comes back to the States for three months in the fall. Harry fans’ cups runneth over. Still, Friday night was the first time he’d ever be performing most of the new album before a live audience, so the sense of an event was palpable, and for many felt like a secret privilege.
