Harry Edward Styles is a singer, songwriter, and actor from England. His musical career began in 2010 as a solo participant on The X Factor in the United Kingdom. Harry Styles at Coachella review: Gorgeous, sequined, genre-bending set.
They say rock is dead, but it’s alive and well at Coachella, donning a sequined catsuit and going by the name Harry Styles. That’s what he wants you to believe, at least. With its 70s folk twangs, Canyon Moons, and sexy-sad sun-dappled songs about love, desire, and regret, the British musician’s concert was in many ways tailor-made for the California festival’s return: his last album, 2019’s Fine Line, was clearly designed with floppy fedoras and flower crowns in mind. However, everything of the bombast and grandeur of a major stadium pop-rock event is in full effect tonight. There’s even a section for brass instruments! There are more weeping guitars on this track than on a Led Zeppelin B-side! Hip-swivelling!
This is a show dripping in slickness, already refined from Styles’ recent tour, from the time he ripples down the spiral staircase without missing a step – and then drops the ostrich he’s wearing on the beat, revealing his stunning Freddie Mercury-styled deep V. Styles is also come to show that he is not just a Rock God Reborn but an adopted All American Son: he brings out All American Gal Shania Twain for a respectful raunch-off. But let us return to the beginning.
Styles has a new album to promote (Harry’s House, out May 20), and he begins by launching his disco rocket with As It Was, the album’s superb lead track (think Robbie Williams, by way of Metronomy, or Joe Jackson). From then, it’s a high-NRG, powerful show that veers from funk to folk-rock, with songs like Adore You, Golden, and, of course, Watermelon Sugar transformed into epic festival moments. During what I’ll simply call Harry’s blue balls segment, he takes his mostly female band to the front of the stage for a new song about being jealous of girlfriends (“To boyfriends worldwide, fuck you” is the prologue). It’s a lovely acoustic ballad with quadruple-pronged harmonies, and it continues his last album’s pretty-ditty leanings. Cherry quickly followed her ex-complaint. girlfriend’s
If anything, One Line was chastised for its lack of content beneath the Bowie-influenced sound, revealing little about one of pop’s biggest male solo performers. But when Styles performs live, it’s evident that his gift as an agile performer is what makes him special. Sure, he’s no Freddie Mercury – that beautiful pop contest voice doesn’t have any octave-hurdling Olympics ripping through it – but tell that to the people collapsing in the front row after all that thrusting. The event starts late by festival standards – it’s well past midnight – but that’s not a problem since Styles immediately declares, like a teacher at a school prom, that there will be “dance for 12 minutes,” just to keep everyone entertained. Canyon Moon does, however, transform into a jubilant jamboree complete with a brass band dressed in matching red boilersuits.
It’s part of the pleasure of Coachella to see who is invited on stage for a guest performance, but Styles keeps the surprises to a minimum. He’s the star of the show tonight. But it’s when Twain takes the stage, rising like a go-go dancer in a glittering minidress and exploding into the campy, bouncy, glammy rock of her world-dominating song Man, I Feel Like A Woman, that the set’s most moving moment occurs. “This lady taught me how to sing in the car with my mother as a child,” Styles recalls later as they sit on stools to duet You’re Still The One. “She also instilled in me the belief that men are garbage.”
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