Love

Let's close out the weekend with some good vibes, shall we?

As mentioned in the comments yesterday, I went to see Harry Styles last night at the Capital One Arena. My kid is a huge fan, so much so that she willingly skipped the final Homecoming dance of her high school career to go see him finally make good on a long-delayed local show. We'd purchased tickets for her over a year ago, but last week, a friend of hers offered her and her pal new tix in a suite. Not a hard decision that.

Initially, my wife and I planned to drive the kids downtown and grab a leisurely meal while the kids watched the show. But yesterday, as the time to leave grew closer, we went all 'fuck it' and decided to use the extra tickets ourselves. When I found out that Jenny Lewis was Harry's opener on the drive to the venue, I was all the more excited.

We dropped the girls off and grabbed a quick dinner and a few drinks. Made it into the arena in time to see about half of the opening set, and to give my daughter a primer on Jenny Lewis' general badassery. Which is substantial.

After her set was over and the house lights came up for the crew to prep for the headliner, it became clear how much energy was displaying. These (mostly) kids had been sitting on a fuckton of pent up emotion of all kinds, and they were ready to blow to the roof all the way off. They screamed their lungs out singing a One Direction song during the intermission, they went off for Bohemian Rhapsody, they loved their collective vibe. And that vibe was incredibly, overwhelmingly positive. As I said on the tweet machine, "I’m at a Harry Styles show and there is some amazing young people energy here. I couldn’t love it more. Even the parts I don’t really understand."

And the kids were dressed to the absolute nines. Sleek party dresses, flowing bell-bottomed pants with shimmering tops, a cornucopia of youth fashion celebrating a genre-defying artist. It was a visual feast.

Styles's trip around the world is called Love on Tour, and as soon as he hit the stage, coming up through a trap door in the middle, love was spread around in copious measure. I don't know his stuff all that well, but his band was great, his stage presence elite, and his message simple and profound. Love each other.

And that's a fine way to end the week, my friends. Here's a collection of fan-shot video from the show. Enjoy. My wife and I sure did.