Harry Styles fans have taken over Midtown Manhattan, and they will continue to through Halloween. The Together, Together Tour has been playing at Madison Square Garden every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday night since mid August, and I had the opportunity to be in the audience on Friday, September 11th.
If you’re commuting in from New Jersey, the easiest way to MSG is to take NJ Transit into New York Penn Station. The train station is directly under the arena and if you’re commuting home after the show you don’t even need to leave the building! We ended up staying overnight in a hotel in Midtown; it was only an 8 minute walk back after the show and we took the train home the next day. If you’re only coming in for the show, I recommend taking a train that arrives between 4pm and 5pm to have ample time for a pre-show dinner and a merch stop.
There are a bunch of great restaurants around MSG so you can forego the arena food if that’s not your ideal dinner. Tír na Nóg is a great Irish pub on W 31st Street closer to 8th Ave, and Mustang Harry’s is a more upscale sports bar on 7th Ave, about a block and a half south of MSG. Both are great options for a quick but delicious pre-show meal. For this show, we went to Mustang Harry’s and I had the caesar salad and steak-frites; I would recommend both!
If you’ll be in the city earlier in the day, you can score early merch at the arena between noon and 5pm. This is when we did our merch shopping and it was so nice not having to carry it around or worry about lines before the show!
As for entering the show itself, we got to the venue at about 6:45pm, and took pictures with the rotating digital signs. It was a mad dash to get as many pictures in before the tour billboard changed to a random ad, but completely worth it. There was quite a long line to get in at this time since the doors don’t open until 7pm, but by about 7:10 we were done taking pictures and just walked right in.
MSG has a different bag policy than most other venues. They allow bags about the size of a personal item on most airlines; they just have to fit under your seat. However, there are “Express” security lanes for people with small bags/no bags, and we were able to go in those lines since all we had were belt bags.
As soon as we were inside and scanned our tickets, we were handed physical keepsake tickets with original artwork on one side and show details on the other. Since we were night eight our tickets had MSG and Harry playing a guitar on them, along with other fun New York details.
Our tickets were in the 200 level; as soon as we made it up to the concourse we got in line for the keepsake cups (they have cocktail and mocktail options!) and the line moved super quickly. We went straight to our seats afterward, because we didn’t want to miss a second of Jamie xx’s set.
Jamie xx came on stage at 8pm exactly and his set was the perfect precursor to Harry’s. His music and lighting matched perfectly and really set the tone for the rest of the show. He had live video streamed onto the above-stage screens of people dancing in the pit; he started the party off strong and did a great job hyping up the crowd for Harry’s entrance. I hadn’t listened to any of his work before the show and was very pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed it. His set was about fifty-five minutes long at my show, as Harry’s band started joining him on stage around 8:55pm. I could feel the energy and excitement from every person in the arena as the last few band members took the stage, and the dancers came out into the arena, Harry following closely.
Harry’s set combined his older popular classics with most of his newest album, and it completely flew by. There were transitions between songs and remixes that I would have never thought of before I saw them live. The staging and lighting was incredible; his oval catwalk was made up of screens and continued graphics from the large screens overhead, along with interacting with Harry and his dancers. A personal favorite graphic of mine was a reference to the New York Times Crossword during “Music For a Sushi Restaurant.”
Before singing “Sign of the Times,” Harry gave a speech in remembrance of those lost on 9/11 and encouraged everyone to put their phones away and be in the moment while a member of his band played “Peace Piece” by Bill Evans. It was a surreal moment where everyone took a seat and reflected on the tragedy while the song was played. It was followed by “Sign of the Times” and the production was incredible.
The encore ended with “Aperture,” but before the song began Harry played a live DJ/synthesizer set for about 5 minutes. It was really cool to see how the equipment worked and how what seemed random at first evolved into the song’s introduction. The ground beneath me was vibrating when the bass began, and it was just the beginning of perhaps the best concert conclusion I’ve seen. The crowd was dancing all night, but it seemed like everyone caught a second wind and was committed to being the most energetic they’d been all night for the song. The lights were bouncing off of every place in the room, and it made it feel as if the arena was one big disco ball.
Unfortunately, the concert had to come to an end, as much as we didn’t want to leave. We left the arena and ended up getting in a super short line for some last minute merch while we were there (I just could not leave behind the purple and red tote bag!) and then headed back to the hotel to get some much needed sleep. Harry Styles puts on a great show no matter where or when you see him; he’s a performer I think everyone should see at least once, and his residency at Madison Square Garden is the perfect time to do so.