Harry Styles: Prince of pop puts on royal performance in Dublin

At which point 'The Best Song Ever' by his former band One Direction was played over the speaker system.

Suddenly everyone sang along. It was euphoric, joyous and mildly deafening. It was also an indication of what was to come.

Some 40 minutes later, the volume in the Aviva stadium really became deafening as Harry Styles arrived onstage. It was not just any arrival.

He was dressed in a green striped hot pants and a matching top with no sleeves (to show off his muscley, tattooed arms) and hair gelled up like heyday Elvis.

His 1970s top was open to reveal a crucifix and just the right amount of chest hair.

He opened with the electro 1970s funk of 'Music For A Sushi Restaurant'', singing "I could cook an egg on you." Next up he played a guitar and blasted out 'Golden.'

He was soon walking around the giant stage with microphone as he sang 'Adore.'

50,000 phones were held aloft, filming the teen (and pre-teen) idol they had come to see setting the Aviva alight.

Every time he smiled (albeit cheekily) at the crowd and did an exaggerated dance for their benefit, the reaction was an eardrum-denting frenzy.

It was like the aforesaid Elvis in his heyday.

This was Harry mania. Even more so when he said: "It's great to be back in Dublin. How are you feeling Dublin? My name is Harry. You can be whatever you want to be tonight. I want you to hold the person's hand on your left and say 'I got you." Then I want you to hold the person's hand on your right and say 'I love you.' Then I want you to close your eyes and say 'I love you.' Ok?"

This was very much okay, not least all the young fans in the audience did what he asked and screamed their approval as they did so.

The parents of the young fans might have recognised him more easily as the Allied soldier Alex trapped on the beaches of 1940 Dunkirk in Christopher Nolan’s WW2 film, Dunkirk.

More at ease with adoring fans than Nazi bombers overhead, he played the soothing reflective 'Maltida'.

Everyone is swaying their phones back and forth (the light of the screens creating a magical effect) to this very deep song.

The young and predominantly female crowd were in their own alternative pop heaven. To anyone who judged Styles or the audience last night, let me direct you to something he told Rolling Stone in 2017: “Young girls like the Beatles. You gonna tell me they’re not serious?”

He has a charm and a cool, yet he carries with a certain vulnerability. He had the crowd sing 'Happy Birthday' to a lucky girl at the show.

He is a very a nice guy. For all his edginess and cool, this is the same multimillionaire star who apologised to his mum Anne who was in the balcony at a recent concert for singing the lyrics “cocaine, side boob, choke her with a sea view” in front of her ‘Keep Driving.’

“Dublin make some noise!” Harry requested. He was wasting his breath. The Aviva Stadium was already shaking to the sound of a sold-out crowd screaming his name. He strutted across the giant stage like the biggest star in the world which he undoubtedly is at the moment (ten sold-out nights at Madison Square Gardens in New York).

His sound owes as much to Prince (not Harry from Windsor but the other one from Minneapolis) and David Bowie and the 1980s as he does to Justin Timberlake or Kendrick Lamar.

Embraced by the LGBTQ+ community and the rest of the planet, Styles with his gender-fluid fashion style and sexually ambiguous image is a perfect cultural ambassador for the modern world of 2022.

His music is edgy too. As The Guardian recently said in a review of Styles, apropos of one of his former band mates: “Spare a thought for little Niall Horan peddling his mum-friendly MOR, Louis Tomlinson’s tepid indie rock teen idol…”

Last night in the Aviva, Styles took the city by storm. "Dublin," he asked, "Do you know who you are?"

Dublin won't forget him for a long time.