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The beloved pop star took a break from hockey arenas to play one of live touring’s most beloved large clubs

Louis Tomlinson brought his full arena rig to the 6,000-capacity Anthem in DC on Tuesday (July 7th) for an underplay on his How Did We Get Here? World Tour. The former One Direction star played most of the tracks from his new album, How Did I Get Here? He opened with the record’s two starting tracks, “Lemonade” and “On Fire.”

Only one One Direction song made the setlist, 2014’s “Night Changes.” The rest of the night focused on Tomlinson’s three-album solo discography. With his full-length debut coming just six years ago, Tomlinson is the last of the One Direction crew to jump into a solo career with both feet.

Tomlinson’s pop music is equal parts rave-inducing (“Lemonade” features a bursting surprise right at the top of the show) and genuinely pensive. “Dark To Light” comes off as substantively emotive, with a driving beat anchoring the lyrics. The acoustic “Defenceless” showed off the underappreciated rawness of Tomlinson’s voice.

The pop star spent most of the night awash in a kaleidoscope of lights and lasers. His massive band riders doubled as techno-club light boxes, pulsating light downstage toward Tomlinson.

I love when artists post up at the Anthem with their full arena rig. It makes you feel like you’re at Rock Lititz watching bands run through at the iconic stage-rehearsal base camp. Everything just hits ten times harder in a box one-fourth the size of the Garden—where Tomlinson interrupted Bon Jovi’s return to the stage with a one-off gig on July 8th. (JBJ and company return on the 9th. My thoughts are with those rigging crews. I digress.)

Lasers and screens combined to make his feel like some sort of pop music laboratory in the middle of outer space. It’s a stage you just don’t want to peel your eyes from for a single second. His runway ended in a question mark-emblazoned b-stage where he belted songs “Sunflowers” and “Lucid.” And singing right along with him were his fans—mostly female—screaming every word to the new songs like they had been out for years.

For his third album, Louis pushed himself as a lyricist, songwriter, and performer, holding nothing back on these tracks. Though he certainly doesn’t have to prove himself, it’s clear that he still writes music, plays shows, and sings as if everything is on the line. In the studio, restless creativity and a hunger for artistic exploration drive his process. Live, he leaves everything on the stage as sold-out crowds meet him head-on with the same amount of enthusiasm and energy. As a writer, he’s diving deeper into who he is than ever before.

How did Louis Tomlinson get here? In new exclusive photos shared with Billboard, the star takes fans behind the scenes of where “here” was for the night on Wednesday (July 8): Madison Square Garden.

The former One Direction band member delivered an epic performance at the New York City arena — turning it back into a concert venue just a few days after Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce got married there — as part of his ongoing How Did We Get Here? world tour, which kicked off in Europe in March. The MSG show comes in the back half of his United States leg, after which Tomlinson will close out with a few dates in Latin America, ending with a concert April 10, 2027, in Mexico City.

In NYC, the artist dazzled fans with songs from his most recent album, January’s How Did I Get Here? — which debuted at No. 16 on the Billboard 200 — as well as other favorites from his solo career. And yes, he also added a little nod to his 1D days, performing sentimental 2014 top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 “Night Changes” for the crowd.

But off the stage, Tomlinson also took some quiet moments to soak in his time at the venue, as captured in some of the photo diary shared with Billboard. Some of the snaps show him performing under stage lights with thousands of fans in frame, while others show him looking contemplative backstage or getting a lay of the land on his stage before the crowd arrived.

As Tomlinson now gears up to play his next show in Pittsburgh on Friday (July 10), keep reading to see the exclusive photos from Tomlinson’s night at MSG.