The accessory du jour was the fluffy pink boa. The color scheme was hot pink - pink pants, pink boots, pink cowboy hats, pink eye-shadow, pink hijabs. Or if not pink, then anything in the tooth-aching shades of the rainbow. It was a lively, joyous sight on Saturday night, a show of hot-colored aesthetics in a defiant contrast to the brutalist concrete skeleton of Rajamangala Stadium. How I wish concrete-mad Bangkok could look like this every day!
When the lights dimmed and the last note of house-warming Bohemian Rhapsody faded, Harry Styles didn't appear in his famed pink suit. That would have been too predictable. His black-and-white, V-necked top and ostensibly-sequined flared pants were however festive and sparkling all-show-long, diligently ricocheting stadium spotlights and a sizzle of adoration from the crowd back and forth, one source of shimmering energy feeding off another in an atomic chain reaction. Harry quickly mentioned the heat and how he was sweating, but there was not a drop of doubt about our scandalous Bangkok humidity (and toxic smog) sapping him off. He was a wired-up rod of life and energy throughout the 100-plus minutes, beaming impish charm and sweet-talking adorability. The crowd loved him. He knew it. And he set out to make them love him even more.
The first Thai phrase he uttered was, of course, Sawasdee kab. No point for that, Harry. But I dug it when he followed it up with, kid tueng naa - "I miss you naa", with that delightful and potentially affected suffix naa a touch of phonetic genius to whoever taught him that. Miss us, because he'd been here in 2018, grooving out at Impact Arena. This time he played the gigantic bowl of the Rajamangala and proved that he was more than capable to hold it under his spells.
The set list of "Love On Tour 2023" was not a thing of surprise; you can Google or YouTube it any time. And yet he made every song alive, rolling out Music for a Sushi Restaurant, Golden, Adore you, Keep Driving, Daylight, and Woman. The standing crowd were on their dancing feet from the get-go. Then they were lulled into a near-weeping sentiment with Matilda, that one song that perhaps explained the presence of a fair number of primary schoolgirls (non-Thai, mostly) and their parents in the audience.
Besides the music, it was Harry's interactions with the crowd - many of them perfect for online virality - that everybody had come looking forward to. He was a natural when it came to that. His impromptu stadium poll about the competing superiority between mango and coconut was, I can't believe I'm saying this, endearing (Was he aware of having been photographed buying coconut near Siam Square a few days earlier?) He kept picking out banner-holding fans and asking them their names, then improvising jokes on the spot. Maybe some of these incidents in Bangkok will soon end up on your YouTube or Tick-Tock suggestions.
Then it's the music again. Upbeat, disco-inflected, rock-tinted, and groovy music. I came looking forward to the song Cinema - I can't believe someone could write a song with that title and make it drip with sex, or at least sexiness - and wasn't disappointed. The crowd burst out in joy with Treat People with Kindness and his One Direction's hit, What Makes You Beautiful (the singalong rate was very high here). Watermelon Sugar brought the crescendo to a night of non-stop joy. Then it was Sign of the Times, which held us in a melancholic trance. Harry rounded it off with his big hit As It was and then Kiwi.
And here let me end my report with something totally expected: It was fun Harry, and now, come on, we want to say goodnight to you.
