5ive was my first major concert.
The most prominent thing I remember from that night is working out how to scream at the concert. If I screamed at a lower, less annoying register, I couldn’t scream for as long or as loudly as I could if I screamed in a more high-pitched fashion. I then practiced different things to scream out, sometimes I’d try just a general shriek, or I’d blast out a ‘woo’. Having a word, even if that word was ‘woo’ seemed to provide an anchor for my yelling.
How lucky for those around me.
I was reminded of this at the Harry Styles concert on Friday night.
Behind me were a group of young girls with their mums. At one point I heard them screaming at different volumes and registers. Essentially trying to find their concert voice. They seemed older than I did at 5ive, but if anyone has seen those memes of me at 13/my sister at 13, we know it’s a bit hard to guess anyone’s age.
Here is an example for those who don’t know what I’m talking about.
Harry Styles was the first concert I’d ever been to by myself, and I felt acutely aware of that the entire time. Parallel to this, for many, it would have been their first concert.
When the show started, I stood up, ready to dance. I was then asked to sit down. I had ruined someone’s video of Harry’s entrance on to the stage. I was four rows from the back on the highest level. Just in case you’re wondering how shit the video would’ve been. I did sit down, but not before telling the person how unreasonable their request was. I stood up approximately ten seconds later. Self-conscious but determined to enjoy the concert.
I adore fans being excited at concerts. Prior to seeing Taylor Swift my little sister couldn’t eat and didn’t talk. Once at a gig for The National, a young man ran around the crowd, a hand permanently attached to his head in disbelief for the entire show. I cried both times I saw Arctic Monkeys, and The Killers, and when I saw Beyonce, well, a sound came out of my mouth that I’ve not heard before or since.
Fan participation on the night took place in the form of buying merch (so much merch), knowing the lyrics, singing them out, feeling like you understand them on some spiritual level (like who is Matilda?), dancing, recording the show and getting dressed up.
As you can see from the feature image, the place was not short on sequins. Below is the carnage of feathers before the concert had even begun. A friend’s friend went to Lombard’s and was told the party supply store was experiencing a nationwide shortage of feather boas. I told my older sister this who asked me if Harry wears feather boas a lot. I told her he must if this is what happened.
A lot of parents were there with their children. I saw one father in a polo shirt that said, ‘Dads Love Harry’ and another in what seemed to be his regular clothes, topped with a pearl necklace. I saw whole families dressed up, the mother and daughter in some cute combo, the father and son in shorts and shirts with a watermelon print. My older sister was in the city the day after his first show, she said it was filled with women and teenagers in his Love on Tour merch, all toting an overnight suitcase. We reflected on young girls being able to experience Harry for themselves, given it was probably them who introduced him into the home. And what their mum’s participation meant for them developing their own image.
My younger sister grew up with One Direction in the way I grew up with 5ive. She explained that when he sang ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ 1Ds first hit, all the younger girls were quiet. This was a time for Generation Z, who had supported Harry from the beginning to have their moment. I thought that this portion of the concert was the loudest, but maybe I was simply surrounded by Gen Z. I don’t know.
Prior to the show starting, I started talking to the two women next to me. I’ll hazard a guess and say they were in their 40s. They’d decided to come to the concert after one drunken evening where they both confessed to each other that they thought Harry was really hot. They only knew a couple of his songs, they told me. They may have last 15 minutes into the show before leaving their seats, perhaps they left the venue or found a bar they could see the show from, they had mentioned this was something they were keen on.
The many ways in which people choose to participate all have value.
Harry Styles is a very generous performer. I’ve been to a lot of concerts, I’m not bragging, just stating my credentials, and I’ve never heard someone say thank you so many times. I’ve never heard someone speak so much to the crowd in such a personalised way either. He was asking people their names and checking on them later. I’m sure there was overlap at all his shows about what he said but unlike the generic ‘insert city name here’ situation we’re familiar with, he helped someone come out to their mum, spoke about performing in Australia before, and how he felt about his songs. At one point I thought to myself, okay Harry, that’s enough talking now.
I once read a tweet or some circulating block of text online that spoke about the communal feeling you get from a concert. The person said they used to think that church is what gave them that, but it wasn’t the religious aspects, rather the shared feelings of joy and being moved on a psychical, sometimes spiritual level. I noticed a lot of people were sitting down at the concert. The person next to me was posting a video within the first sixty seconds. I was confused. I was reminded of Beyonce shouting at someone in a crowd to ‘put the damn camera down’. This was ten years ago. It seems a pointless request now.
At the end of the show, we were in grid lock trying to leave the venue. A group of people next to me were commenting on the lack of participation from the crowd. They felt it was the audience’s duty to bring energy for the performer, and for the performer to reciprocate this. Two of these people had remained seated, they were there, they said to experience what going to a show ‘like this’ would’ve been like. I’m assuming the like this refers to seeing a pop icon of behemoth proportions in action. I’m stereotyping but they looked like they wore New Balance sneakers and watched smaller gigs in pubs, shunning things that are popular but discovering them because they are popular. Now I’m just really going after them.
Perhaps I felt like an outsider at the show. Not just because I was experiencing such a shared experience on my own, but because in such a shared experience, I felt acutely aware of my aloneness. I didn’t feel I belonged to the crowd of his fans, and I wasn’t enough of a fan myself to carry it.
Good on you for standing up and pointing out how unreasonable it was! Ridiculous.