In my life, I have been to fourteen concerts ranging from alternative metal to pop. By far my favorite artist to see has been Harry Styles. I have seen him twice, once at the Wells Fargo Center in Philly and once during his Madison Square Garden residency over this summer. Both times I had great seats, the first time in the pit and the second time in the 100 section.

The second time I was in the same room as Styles was August 26, 2022. It was his fourth night at The Garden and people were pumped. One thing about going to his concerts is people like to wear boas so there were feathers everywhere: at the train station in Princeton, at the train station in New York, on the train itself, even all over the streets surrounding The Garden. The comradery on the train and in the streets was overwhelming. People were playing Harry Styles and One Direction out of speakers. It was like there was a concert before the concert. I was extremely excited to get inside of the building after waiting, and then the disappointment and frustration came.

I was ready to swiftly purchase merchandise from the clothes stand and get inside. My friend and I had gotten there a few minutes before the doors were supposed to open so we imagined little to no waiting inside seeing as we were at the back of the already long line. Once we were inside, it was a madhouse. People were yelling along with security to get into the merchandise lines or move out of the way. It was very chaotic and uncontrolled. It was overwhelming and the only break we got from the yelling was when we were able to speak to the merchandise seller.

Once the merchandise seller ushered us out of the front we were forced to go wait in the big crowd to enter the seating area. It was hot and no one was wearing a mask. My friend and I waited for about 30 minutes until we were let into the main part of the venue. We climbed a few flights of stairs and finally reached our seats. We had gotten a pretzel and some water and waited out the beginning of the concert.

The opener, “Blood Orange”, was ok. They had a few songs that were catchy but nothing that stood. They weren’t something I was going to run home and tell everyone about. However, Harry Styles was. The moment his opening video played, the crowd went wild. There was a roar of cheers and a feeling of community. He played a total of 18 songs including the encore and rocked every minute of time he was performing. Styles sang 1 song from his One Direction days, 2 songs from his first studio album, 4 songs from his second studio album, and 11 songs from his most recent album Harry’s House. Each song was sung and played with intensity and energy. The crowd was able to keep up in every moment of the show. During one part, everyone was cheering for him to sing Medicine, a song that is only ever performed live. Our night wasn’t lucky but he performed it the next night which made me annoyed but happy to have gone to his concert anyways. There were some stellar moments that came when he wasn’t performing also. Styles has a golf dad cam, where he finds men that look like dad’s who had taken their daughters to the show in the crowd and points them out. There was also a little toddler that had fallen asleep during our show, and he spent a moment of time talking with her parents in the crowd.

All in all It was an amazing experience. I am fortunate enough to have been a part of it twice. If you ever get the chance to experience a Harry Styles concert, take that opportunity because you for sure won’t regret it.