Ruth Writes

Not long after Harry released his album, Fine Line, the pandemic closed us down and locked us in. As ridiculous as it may sound, one of the things that made me realise how serious this whole pandemic thing was, was the slow announcement of cancelled concerts and postponed shows; Ticketmaster depositing refunds into my bank account that I didn’t want.

In my lowest points during the pandemic, when alarms became a thing of the past, getting dressed didn’t feel important and I missed so many people because over the phone just wasn’t enough, the final song on Harry’s album was one I turned to. I would lie awake and listen to him tell me ‘we’ll be alright’ with my eyes closed picturing the ‘after’ of all of this when we would all, eventually, be alright again. I pictured myself at the next Harry Styles concert getting to hear him sing me this reminder live. When my friend and I would get in our feelings about the state of the world and the question marks hanging over our futures, I would remind her that one day we would get to hear Harry Styles and a huge crowd of people scream at us that ‘we’ll be alright’ and we would be.

On June 10^th 2023, we went to see Harry Styles play at Slane Castle. If someone wasn’t wearing a bejewelled cowboy hat, they were wearing a feather boa; the atmosphere was electric. Throughout the concert, I would tear my gaze away from the main stage and pause my bopping body to take in the sea of people enjoying the moment together.

The delicate strum of his guitar made me shiver when I realised, I was about to hear Fine Line live. Harry Styles was going to tell me, in person, that we’d be alright. An imaginary moment was about to become a reality. I stood still and whispered the words of the song as emotions of the last three years spilled from my eyes in a moment of vulnerability amongst strangers who felt safe. The slow build up echoed inside my chest. The tears kept coming. And then my moment, the pause in the music to allow him to belt it with his full chest. I let my head fall back and looked up at the dusky sky. Along with Harry Styles and around 80,000 people I shouted that ‘we’ll be alright’ into the open air. In that ten second moment, a weight lifted off my shoulders, a knot untied in my chest, and I was able to breathe, completely alright. I had drawn myself my little full circle moment and I wished that this memory would never be tainted by old age.

This tiny memory is what I take as my favourite of the unbelievably long Love on Tour. It will be strange not to have new outfit reveals and show moments, but I will be forever grateful for my own moments from my tiny part in Love on Tour.