Published 2024-03-16 01.09
share-arrowDela
unsaveSpara
expand-left
full screenDue to a photo ban at the concert in Stockholm, we publish a picture of Niall Horan during a performance in New York in 2023. Photo: Charles Sykes / AP
CONCERT The echo following One Direction has hardly quieted down – rather it has been amplified. Niall Horan is not Harry Styles, but he has a similar effect on his audience.
You never really get used to the power of a pop concert.
Niall Horan
Place: Court, Stockholm. Public: 8 000. Length: 97 minutes. Best: ”This town”. Worst: Niall Horan needs more songs like this. Question: “The next time I’m coming, we’re going next door,” says Niall and nods towards the Globe. Do I sense a little dissatisfaction?
On the way home from Wednesday’s John Mayer-concert, I see a group of girls outside Hovet with cabin bags and sleeping mats. They arrived regarding 62 hours before the concert with Niall Horan and works in shifts, four by four, to keep the place at the front of the queue.
The fact that Niall Horan can still tour across four continents is of course largely thanks to the former boy band One Direction. But his own audience has actually more than tripled since he was here last, at Fryshuset 2018.
You never really get used to the power of this kind of pop concert. Just to hear the sing-along Abbas ”Dancing queen” played in the speakers as a warm-up is a goosebump-inducing experience.
In a black tank top, black trousers and a slicked-back hairstyle, Niall Horan is not unlike a certain one Harry Styles. The Irishman may lack the pop cultural explosiveness of his colleague – rather he is proof of the timeless allure of the rock that it sounded like Fleetwood Macs album ”Rumours”. Every new generation needs its own artists, and a song that ”On the loose” tonight will be an effective 70s pastiche. For the sake of clarity, we also get a bit of Stevie Nicks ”Edge of seventeen”.
After just over half an hour, Niall Horan & Co sit down on the catwalk for an acoustic party. With only piano, violin and lap steel, it will be the most beautiful moment of the concert. The music here falls under the “OC” rock tab. To reinforce this, the Irishman does ”You might start a cult”the duet he recorded with one of the genre’s new leading figures Lizzy McAlpine.
Incidentally, the 30-year-old has the easiest job in Stockholm tonight. All he needs to do is – apart from the obvious singing and playing – stand, walk and wave. He does the latter with impressive timing – and more besides. He politely comments on the crowd’s signs. Thanks for meatballs, Ikea and Max Martin. Signing a jacket that probably gets torn to shreds the moment it’s sent back out into the crowd.
The singer from the town of Mullingar is so dryly polite that I suspect his mental age is, at least, sixty-three. At least it seems so in his little “chats” with the audience.
– I’ve been coming here for a very very very long time, he says and sits down at the piano, as if he Elton John on the way to retirement.
– Today I was walking in Slussen. (Skrik.)
– Then I walked to 7-Eleven. (Vrål.)
When a disco ball is lowered from the ceiling and One Direction– the hit ”Stockholm syndrome” dusted off… well, you get the idea.
For someone who doesn’t fall asleep every night in a room wallpapered with Niall Horan posters, the concert grows to unimaginable heights thanks to the audience. The sing-along i ”This town” is the kind that comes straight from the heart and seems to jump out of the throat at the same time and the person in question does not know whether to laugh, cry or faint – or maybe all at the same time.
During the aforementioned phone lighter ballad, the camera captures a young couple holding each other. When they appear on the screens, an extra buzz goes through the already drunk audience.
It’s all a little shock of love.
FACT
All the songs
1. Nice to meet ya 2. Small talk / Edge of seventeen 3. On the loose 4. On a night like tonight 5. The show 6. Never grow up 7. Heartbreak weather 8. Black an white 9. Science 10. This town 11. You might start a cult 12. Heaven 13. Must be love 14. Stockholm syndrome 15. Fire away 16. Meltdown 17. Mirrors 18. Still Encore: 19. Save my life 20. Slow hands
Read more
