Harry Styles wows crowd at One Night Only show in New York City

Hysterical screams, feather boas, and monogrammed pyjamas are just the beginning of the Harry Styles phenomenon. Here’s what Aussie fans can expect when his global tour kicks off.

It’s at least two hours before Harry Styles is due on stage in New York and the girl in front of me in line is sobbing. Hysterically.

“I got a ticket! I got a ticket,” she squeals, grabbing my arm, and resplendent in what can only be described as Harry Styles monogrammed pyjamas.

I missed Beatlemania by a few decades but a Styles crowd must surely be the closest thing to it. (Admittedly, I didn’t see One Direction at their most scream-worthy.)

UBS Arena on New York’s Long Island is packed with screaming teens, early-20s women, fashionable gay boys, and a sea of feather boas.

I’ve never felt so old.

The one-off One Night Only in New York show (another is scheduled for London this Tuesday) is to celebrate the global release of his third – and frankly, best – album, Harry’s House, before his global Love on Tour kicks off for real in mid-June.

(He’ll hit Australian and New Zealand shores in February for a run of seven stadium shows after his 2020 arena tour was postponed due to the Covid pandemic.)

When Styles appears to glass shattering screams – after Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody and, aptly, Frank Sinatra’s New York, New York got the already pumped audience going – it’s as if the messiah has arrived. And he has.

“Hi, my name is Harry,” he says grinning, knowing he needs absolutely no introduction whatsoever.

Cue screams.

“And tonight I want you to be whoever you want to be.”

Harry Styles in full flight causes reactions akin to Beatlemania. Picture: Supplied

Harry’s here to play the album in full “from start to finish, as it was meant to be played”.

He kicks things off with the funkadelic splendour of Music for a Sushi Restaurant, which is more than a nod to Prince and gets the crowd dancing (while still screaming).

During his headline set at Coachella last month, where a staggering 100,000 fans reportedly watched him, Styles stalked the stage in a glittery jumpsuit. Tonight, he’s infinitely more understated in a love-heart T-shirt and leather pants, but one swivel of those hips sends the crowd into full on meltdown.

He dedicates the absolute banger As It Was to the crowd “because once again you’ve changed my life”.

Midway through, things slow down with the stunning ballads Little Freak and Matilda (the album’s standout track). Styles says the song was inspired by a friend who grew up in an abusive environment, but he could very well be talking about himself post-One Direction.

“You don’t have to be sorry for leaving and growing up,” he sings.

“You don’t have to be sorry for doing it on your own.”

Styles is one of the biggest pop stars on the planet and he deserves to be. When Harry sings to his devoted masses, it really feels like a conversation between equals. He adores his audience as much as they adore him.

(Justin Bieber was always too snarly, Justin Timberlake a tad snarky.)

The pop icon will launch a highly anticipated global tour in June 2022. Picture: Supplied

But Styles is kind and he’s lovely (he stops the show on multiple occasions to make sure his fans are OK), and don’t we need that in 2022?

Styles has become so much more than a manufactured teen idol. He’s a mature artist now, and he’s taking his fans along with him.

It’s touching how he says throughout the night that without the fans he wouldn’t be where he is today, and you know he means it.

He also knows exactly what they want and the arena goes nuclear when he comes back for an encore of “old favourites”.

He rips through Adore You, Watermelon Sugar and Sign of the Times before causing another earth tremor when he pulls out the One Direction classic, What Makes You Beautiful.

In fact, you almost have to feel sorry for Styles’ former One Direction bandmates. They never stood a chance against the dazzling charisma of this bloke.

It’s Harry’s world and we’re all just living in it.