I was the only nearly 59-year-old woman wearing a silver sequinned tube dress and pearls at the Harry Styles concert at Mt Smart stadium last Tuesday. Almost all of the other 40,000+ fans attending wore pink. I have never seen so much pink. The bleachers glowed pink. The sickly drinks on sale were pink. I doubt fans wore this much pink to Pink. Harry bless him wore aubergine coloured trousers, a sequinned whale tale on a white t-shirt, and a huge smile. I was hoping for a sequinned body suit THB. Although his trousers perfectly matched the aubergine reference which came up on repeat in his fruit n veg encore (check it out on Tik Tok*)
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| pink |
Hello, I’m Harry, said Harry. The crowd screamed. No one threw bras or thongs this was a sober teenage rage of the best kind. Be yourselves tonight, said Harry, be anyone you want to be. The crowd swayed (some possibly cried.) Young fans had been waiting 500 hours outside the stadium to get beneath Harry’s stage gaze. They (me included) hung on his every word. The cheeky pretty pop god from Cheshire is funny. He does good banter. Witty off-the-cuff stuff. The crowd performed a newbie kids' author’s verbology. They swooned. Fizzed. Giggled. Cried. Sang. Cheered. Whistled. Screamed. Woooed. Danced. They danced with their hands above their heads, with their cell phone lights on. Cheap feather boas from Spotlight and LookSmart dropped a rainbow of feathers. Where had all those feathers come from? Why did they drop so easily. Thousands of necks were rubbed by their pricky points. I wore baby pink, Daughter-one white, Daughter-two yellow along with a Harry’s House t-shirt worn as a dress. There was a lot of flesh on show. But also not. There were dads dressed to match their pre-teen daughters! OMG. Cute. Never has there been such a good time at an underage rage.
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| Best Dressed |
Harry has been accused of gay-baiting with his feminine attire. I’m not really up with his love life except for Olivia Wilde but to me his clothes are just an exploration of freedom and fuck you. The pearls, the painted nails, the high heels, the fluffy jumpers, the mesh vests and chiffon tie neck blouses. He’s the Bowie of the 2020’s and we need him. All the pigeon holing that’s done nowadays is such an offensive yawn. Funny that his last name is Styles because the guy rocks loads of the stuff. His stage show from Rear Floor (not even the arse arse end of the stadium) was a bit Sweetwaters tbf. Main stage video back drop, two side panels wide enough for one hooman at a time. I had no idea he had a t-boned stage that he danced along eyeing up those crying teens doing the thumbs up and heart-hand signs to make sure they weren’t about to perish. But me and my gals had room to move our booties and throw our hands in the air on the spongy plastic floor covering the pitch underneath. I clocked up 21,000 steps that night. The nek day I felt as though I’d been out clubbing, downing tequila shots. I hadn’t. All it took was one pink drink and the infectious happiness of crowd. The One Directioners who’d grown up with Harry, those that fell in love and remained loyal from his first Watermelon lapping album. Guy’s won Grammys. Guy’s going places. Yet he still thanked us, the crowd, over and over. Thank you Auckland and surrounding areas, he repeated. I’ve been cumming to Noo Zeeeeland for 11 years now. He did the Census. He sang, Tutira Mai Nga Iwi. He had fruit thrown at him. A banana. An Apple. His vocalist and percussionist ironically is a kiwi named Niall. She did a headstand which turned into a walk over and looked insanely painful. Harry’s hot. His band’s hot. For what the show lacked in fireworks and a drone light show, it made it up for it with eye candy, a still night and the full moon coming out on cue.
The next day at a hip café in Grey Lynn the manager asked me where I’d been, pointing at the mauve wrist tag I still hadn’t removed. Harry Styles, I said. Oh, I was at Pavement that night, shows how different we are. She then went on to state how her kids did like him but they grew out of him and he should stay off the big screen and what was that last movie he did the one with Florence Pugh? Don’t Worry Darling, Daughter-two said, me and my friends loved it. I said, I loved the concert. I wanted to say, Hon you need to swap those black Docs for your pink ones, swap the denim cut-offs and grey T for a sequinned mini, pop along to a LOVEONTOUR concert, and dance like nobody's watching. Harry Styles snobs seem torn – like people who keep reading turgid literary tomes on the train when they really want to read a rip-roaring women’s fiction. Let your hair down, I say. Or put it up, and run up a pink one-piece, wrap fairy lights around your Stetson and get on down.
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| Over-excited author with gorgeous daughters |
More than one middle-aged woman has already weighed in on the Harry Styles cool. Alison Mau, SST with her piece titled, “Why I’m Bananas for Harry’s style”, said it all. I discovered several lady friends had been there celebrating life on Tuesday with their chillin (not that ours need chaperoning anymore.) Pip. Claire. Sally.
Later a friend in Millers Flat asked if Harry waved at me. I replied, Ha no … but honestly it was the happiest gathering of 40,000+ singing and dancing people that I’ve ever been at. I didn’t get taken to pop concerts by my mum when I was a tween. I would’ve happily swooned to The Bee Gees, Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles, Leo Sayer ... Alison M said the crowd ranged from 7 to 70. Hurry back Harry!
Until nek time, girlfriends.
I’m Harry.
* https://www.tiktok.com/@briacameron/video/7207779831314910465?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7190920291958277633
