Love On Tour 22
This past weekend I traveled up to New York with one of my best friends to see Harry Styles perform at his New York residency for Love On Tour. We had been looking forward to this trip for months, and I haven’t totally processed that it happened and it’s over now. We had such a positive experience at Madison Square Garden, and, although there are only two shows left in the New York residency specifically, I wanted to share about our experience.
The staff at Madison Square Garden were all especially kind and welcoming to us from the security to the merch stand, and I was very surprised at just how excited they seemed for us to be there. When we first arrived in New York the day before our concert we went straight to the venue to get merch early, and the staff were very helpful as we tried to figure out how we were supposed to get into the building and to the stand. They were also very accommodating of the fact that we had literally all of our luggage with us, which is something we hadn’t thought of being a potential problem until we walked in and saw all of the security.
At the merch stand too the staff were super friendly as well, seeming very interested in where we were from and making sure that the clothes we picked out were the size we wanted before having us pay for anything. It was such a relaxing experience, and really set us off on the right foot for starting our trip.
Then at the actual concert itself, a security man with his dog helped us figure out where in the building we were supposed to be going and was again very welcoming and showed us the cutest picture of his dog sitting outside of Harry’s dressing room. The staff really contributed to the concert experience being as positive as it was, and even though Harry was the main reason I was excited for the night I really appreciated the positivity they added.
Once we got to our seats and were waiting for Harry to come on stage I started really taking in the arena, the lights and general set up were all so cool and created a fun ambience. Around five minutes before Harry was supposed to start performing we heard screaming that could only mean the box he was in was being rolled under the stage. A few minutes later, the video that plays at the start of the concert began, and another great performance from Harry Styles had started.
As someone who got to go see Harry for the first North American leg of Love on Tour as well, I was happy that the set list was mostly from Harry’s House since those were the songs I hadn’t heard live yet, and unlike Fine Line I’m not sure which song from this album was my favorite to hear in person. We were really hoping to hear Medicine, an unreleased song that he sometimes performs live, since he didn’t sing it when he came to Raleigh. As the main show progressed I wondered when it would happen if it was going to happen, but was also just so happy to be there and hear all these new songs that I didn’t want to ruin it by being sad if he didn’t play Medicine.
When the main part of the concert was over, I assumed that had also ended our chances of getting to hear Medicine. The audience wasn’t having that though. Several times in the break between the main concert and the encore, the audience started chanting Medicine in hopes that Harry would perform it when he came back on stage. He started with Sign of the Times as usual, but once that song ended I noticed Harry’s guitar player Mitch was switching guitars and that was when I knew. Medicine began, and that was one of my favorite parts of the whole concert since not everyone gets to hear it live.
I’m not sure when Harry will be back touring in North America again once this leg is done, he seems to be showing no signs of slowing down considering he’s already announced Love on Tour 2023 in Europe, but he’s such a good performer so I will be sure to get tickets the next time he’s back.
Now that this concert is over though, I don’t have anymore concerts lined up for the future. I definitely will need to work on fixing that before too long, because concerts are one of my favorite things to go experience. I’m sure I’ll be seeing Harry again someday, but in the meantime maybe he can give himself a well deserved break at some point.