#hs1t

When tickets went on sale in May, I was planning to stick to a strictly east coast journey. The more we learned about how difficult they would be to get (codes! Verification! Gladiator-like battles against each other on the World Wide Web™ for venues that would house a shaving of the people who were trying for them from all over the country and all around the world), the more the blowout got cut down. Whereas my friend and I were initially planning on New York and maybe Nashville to make up for a previously postponed trip, we whittled it to New York if we were lucky with Boston as a backup. When only I became verified and received a code, the team got cut down to one, and when Ticketmaster failed to refresh (something our cousins across the pond assured us was the key in their ticket-buying process)….

The day ended with no tickets for me. My best friend had friends who had gotten them tickets to San Francisco, though, and at the time that was most important to me. She’d roped me into the wild ride of supporting this artist, and her getting to see him was my main priority. I kept perspective by remind myself this meant more money for seeing him whenever the next tour was announced (which it was — a little over a month later. I impossibly scored the tickets I wanted at the venue I wanted during presale).

The rollercoaster turned us upside down when the pals she was supposed to go with had to back out. There had already been a few false starts earlier in the summer when codes and tickets were allegedly rereleased, and by this point I’d made my peace with biding my time for the next year. As patient and settled as I was, though, when she asked if I wanted to buy one of the tickets and make a trip out of it with her, I jumped at the opportunity and took a flight out of JFK at 7:00am to head farther west than I’ve ever been in my entire life.

Opening night at the Masonic in San Francisco was a whole lot of new for me. It was full of queuing (for 10.5 hours at that without food or drink — I know, I know…), getting barricade, nearly passing out (I repeat: I know, I know…), and fire alarms that had my father’s age old reminder of, “Remember the fire at the Cocoanut Grove” echoing in my head as I triple-checked that I knew where the exits were.

(Should he ever see this post: I was right by one and there was a straight shot to another one. I very clearly made it home in one piece. I am OK).

Anybody who remembers anything about level of promo for this album leading up to its 12th of May debut will know that no expense was spared and all stops were pulled. Subsequently, expectations for this tour were high, both from those curious to see what he could do and those who had seen it before. As a fan who skidded in just before the start of One Direction’s hiatus but before the four members’ solo careers, the show was everything I expected it to be. I don’t think the crowd stopped screaming from the moment the lights first dimmed and Styles’ silhouette appeared on the pink and flowery curtain in front of us (a sight unseen to me since I was tucked all the way off to the side with the tradeoff of being able to see behind the curtain as the band and Styles darted out to take their positions on stage before anybody else. Incidentally, the highlight of the evening for me was when I smiled at bassist Adam Prendergast just before the curtain dropped and he grinned back — a moment important only to me that has made him my fast favorite out of all Styles' bandmates).

What you hear is what you get — apart from improvisations, the songs sound precisely as they do on the record in tone and quality, even with the enthusiastic jumping, kneeling, and, as he puts it, prancing, from the man who sings them. Anybody questioning whether or not he can sing based on any number of criticisms (from his X-Factor beginnings to the One Direction cannon that shot his name into virtually every household) should have no doubt about it. From a showmanship perspective, although the first few songs seemed rushed — either part of a squeaky-clean plan or a time crunch thanks to the half hour delay from the fire alarm — and he, consequently, seemed tense, once the 75 minute set was half over, he had relaxed into the groove of the exchange of love between him and the auditorium full of people who returned his apparent affection in spades.

This, I think, was the special part of the evening, and it’s what fans go to see and experience — the certainty that they are loved by someone they love, too. Seeing Harry Styles blow kisses and clutch his chest while very clearly saying the words, “I love you so much,” it was impossible to deny that he meant it. With arms thrown open, he unfurled a blanket of love and gratitude that stretched to the rafters and knitted into the one that the crowd rolled out his way — evidenced by the way they (we) sang, “You bring me home,” during his soft acoustic Sweet Creature and how he had his Sign Of The Times sung back to him as he stood there watching in silent awe, absorbing 3,480 people singing the words he wrote that meant something to them where they started out meaning something to him.

I left that night exhausted and running on fumes that carried me through an 18 hour bus trip to Las Vegas and with the pipe dream of somehow finding my way into Radio City. Even over the summer, I’d eyed tickets on StubHub with the impractical and unfounded urge to hear New York’s stars Kiwi and Ever Since New York in New York. I had the rest of the week in Vegas and the majority of the following week back in the city to kick it out of my system. After a friend and I asked Radio City if any tickets would be released and they assured us it was a no (due to his Dunkirk fame and popularity, all tickets were going to be sent to industry waitlists), I was well and truly ready to settle in for Periscope streams from my couch. Free snacks and the ability to lounge about were licking my wounds.

And then I got the call (the first time I’ve ever been able to say that in my life). From  4771.69 miles away, Bella had found someone whose friend had canceled on them at the last minute (cancellations seem to be my lucky charm) and they were selling their ticket for face value — much better than the prices that started at five times the original selling price on StubHub. She verified the tickets were real while I threw clothes on, slapped makeup on, and ran out of my house to make it to the venue in time. While I can’t necessarily say I endorse this since there are any numbers of ways it could have gone wrong, I had the appropriate systems set up in place (people were told, code words were established, and a plan to call Bella after getting there was made) and in an hour and a half I was inside Radio City for the fifth night of tour.

Both San Francisco and New York were special experiences. San Francisco was historic — it was opening night of the first sold out solo tour in a venue that only time and his management will be able to tell if he’ll be able to play ever again. Being there for the debut and all the bumps that came with it was an honor as a fan, and it’s something I’m looking forward to thinking about for years to come and telling any children I might have in twenty years time when they’re listening to his seventh album and marveling at the cool stuff their mom used to do.

As important and magical as that night felt, though, I knew that the experience between hearing it on the road and hearing it at home would be palpable, especially with the way the performances in L.A., Nashville, and Chicago had increasingly ramped up. After the curtain dropped and was carried away, it became apparent that my rash decision had been the right one. Any bumps that had been apparent during opening night were long gone, and without the fear of passing out from exhaustion, jet lag, dehydration, starvation, and heat, I was able to scream, sing, and dance in ways I hadn’t been able to in San Francisco (I apologize to the people behind me who had to deal with my 5’8” self keeping my arms in the air for most of the night). Styles debuted a new cover of One Direction’s Story Of My Life, and he led the crowd through two and a half renditions of Kiwi to prove that New York is actually always jacked up and that it would do well as a single (Columbia Records, Styles’ label, confirmed the release of the single less than a week after the Radio City tour date). Although my first rockstar moment came when I was 22 and saw Morrissey at MSG when he threw his shirt into the pit for adoring fans to tear to shreds, the second came that night when Styles, evidently having lost his mind only moments after asking Radio City to do just that (with a please — he’s British, after all), raced up a wall to loom over the venue below him during his cover of Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain. If you want pics for proof or it didn’t happen, you’ll have to dig through Twitter — I was too busy doing exactly as he’d asked and staring in shock to be able to snap a photo of it.

I’m going to see him next year — once at Madison Square Garden and once in the midwest, so I’ll again be traveling a ridiculous distance — and I don’t have a doubt that I’ll be in for many more surprises and much more love.