If you have been sleeping on Harry Styles and his new debut album, now’s the time to stop hitting that snooze button and WAKE UP!The Harry Styles you knew from the days of bubblegum pop in One Direction has turned into someone nobody would’ve imagined him to become, a rockstar. Despite this being his first solo tour, Harry Styles definitely knew how to work the crowd with every single song from his debut album. He definitely wasn’t too shy about showing off his moves during “Only Angel”, “Carolina” and the fan-favourite-recently-made-second-single from the album, “Kiwi”.

The stage was hidden from the audience with a gargantuan piece of pink fabric with floral prints on it, and as the lights went down in the auditorium, harmonies emerged from the stage and a spot light shone from the back of the stage creating a silhouette of Harry Styles. It was then that fans all over the auditorium went berserk as they recognised that familiar tune. The English singer-songwriter opened up the show with “Ever Since New York”, as the piece of fabric falls to the ground revealing Harry Styles and his band. Harry Styles dressed in his signature look, pastel pink blazer with floral prints, black t-shirt inside and trousers matching his blazer. The 23 year-old was dressed his best and was ready to send his fans swooning over his charismatic self. But let us all agree that had he came out wearing a black t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants he would have still sent his fans swooning.“Two Ghosts”, another fan favourite track was the second track on the setlist and his sultry vocals made the song a lot better live. The imagery you get from just the lyrics of this song is unbelievably vivid, a song that talked about him and his partner leaving people behind in their own lives. Immediately after that, Harry switched up the tempo and performed “Carolina” and got the entire audience up on their feet and clapping to the song. He demanded the audience to dance with him as he pranced around the stage hitting every note on “Only Angel”.Other than the ten songs on his album, he covered Ariana Grande’s heartbreaking record (which was initially penned by Harry Styles himself) “Just A Little Bit of Your Heart” and gave it an anthemic twist that had a catchy hook which made the whole crowd sing along. And despite One Direction’s departure as a boyband, die-hard Directioners weren’t disappointed as Harry performed “Stockholm Syndrome” and his own rendition of “What Makes You Beautiful”.

Just as we thought having Harry Styles sing the throwback hits from his One Direction days was the best he could do, he revived the crowd with “Kiwi”, the new single from his debut album. The crowd went crazy with every word he sang about wanting to have our babies and it’s none of our business!As he ended Kiwi, he exited stage left making everyone thinking it was the end of the show. But all his fans knew that it wasn’t going to end without having Harry sing his debut single “Sign of the Times”. But being the tease he’s always been, he covered Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain” and demanded us to party one last time before he ended his show.

And then the familiar chords came in, and the crowd sang along to the final song with their flashlights in the air.

Harry Styles has proved to be an amazing vocalist and I personally believe that his solo career will be the one to soar high, do not fight me on this. If you have not heard his debut album, you need to take some time out to listen to this piece of art. I can safely say it is one of the best albums released so far in 2017. If you missed your chance to catch Harry Styles this year, he’ll be coming back for another show next year on the 3rd of May at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.

A big thanks to Live Nation / Lushington Entertainments for this amazing opportunity to catch Harry Styles live!

Written by: Tng Yong Jie