Harry Styles stuns on first tour as solo artist


Emma Peplow | Daily Trojan

Harry Styles isn’t your typical rockstar.

He has a smattering of tattoos, but of arbitrary, non-threatening objects — a mermaid, a butterfly, sparrows. Underneath his perfectly coiffed pompadour lies a verisimilar face reminiscent of gritty rock god Mick Jagger. He transitioned from the guilty-pleasure, wholesome pop of his former boy band One Direction to a debut solo album that is as unapologetically rock as it is self-aware — all without his fans seeming to bat an eye.

And nowhere was Styles’ enigmatic effervescence on display more so than in his sold-out show at the Greek Theatre Wednesday night performing his eponymous debut album. In the second show of his first world tour and first Los Angeles show as a solo act, Styles employed the screams, the theatrics, the frenzy originating with the ‘70s rock that brought us Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith and the Sex Pistols, on the stage just a few feet away from merchandise booths selling shirts that have “TREAT PEOPLE WITH KINDNESS” emblazoned across the front. Maybe “kindness” didn’t have a place in the rock and roll pioneered by Styles’ forerunner Jagger, but that’s what’s remarkable about Styles — he is a 21st century rock star. He sets the terms.

Throughout his set, he was cognizant of his rock influences. Styles, dressed in a teal and gold patterned, wide-legged suit was flanked on both sides by suited guitarists, while a drummer sat on a tall pedestal behind him and a keyboardist stood next to the drummer. Minus the keyboardist, Styles assembled his band in the classic Beatles’ formation. The ’70s-inspired suits, the line of three guitarists, the raised drummer — Styles wants you to know he did his rock and roll homework before jumping from the sometimes vapid world of pop. He also indulged in the rock star tongue waggle during one of his more hard rock tracks, “Only Angel,” and danced like a rock star banshee during his most archetypal rock song, “Kiwi.”

A remarkable moment came when he performed the Fleetwood Mac classic “The Chain” to a crowd of fans singing along to all the words, though most were not yet born at the time of its 1977 release. Throughout the show Styles brought a new generation of fans into the long-held secrets of rock and roll, while making his mark on a new rock era.

Though the concert weighed heavily on the side of rock influences — heavy drums, heavy guitar riffs and high-pitched shrieks marked the hour and 15 minutes of the performance — Styles did not shy away from his pop past, performing covers of two One Direction songs: “Stockholm Syndrome” and “What Makes You Beautiful.” Perhaps it was to acknowledge his roots or maybe to show how far he has come, but there was something striking about the songs being sung not in a pop capacity by five fresh-faced young men, but by a five-piece band with real instruments, a rock arrangement and a lead singer oozing with the confidence that only a mature performer can possess. That night, his stage presence was markedly different from his show business debut at age 16.

Styles’ performance was minimalist in a way few of his contemporaries’ large concert tours are. He went through most songs without speaking in between, and with the exceptions of his more uptempo rock tracks, stood relatively still behind a microphone stand, either singing or playing the guitar. Styles, perhaps in alignment with the highly personal nature of his album, kept stoic, almost low-energy for the majority of the performance, breaking only a few times to giggle at a failing microphone or to employ a few self-deprecating lines of humor about his short set due to his limited discography.

And the crowd more than made up for Styles’ mellow demeanor. It might be a tired comparison to equate the reactions of One Direction fans with Beatlemania, but the intensity of response Styles evokes from his fans with the slightest flash of a grin or sway in between verses must be unprecedented. Tears, hyperventilation and screams are just a few symptoms of “Harrymania.”

But Styles’ muted performance worked for him. The show had plenty of theatrics — his ostentatious wardrobe choice, the sweeping rock ballad hit “Sign of the Times” as Styles’ final performance of the evening — but Styles’ demeanor and the stage itself were not among them. This night was about the music, not him — though surely the fans reduced to sobs upon hearing the first notes of “Ever Since New York” as the show began would disagree.

Styles has built his career on being elusive. He gives you just enough to be intrigued, but never enough to be fully satisfied. He rides the border. He embraces androgyny; he’s the bad boy rockstar that preaches kindness; he’s the most talked-about without talking much at all; he looks new wave in a suit that even the ’70s probably would have looked upon as tacky.

Contradictory, yes. Perplexing, perhaps. But there’s just something about Harry Styles, the solo performer, that sticks. And no, he won’t tell you what it is.