Week #8 - Jackie - Obsession at a Harry Styles Concert (it's not what you think)

As much as I would love to dedicate a whole post about my obsession with Harry Styles, this is not what this is about. 

Although, great news!

I attended two Harry Styles concerts this weekend at the Forum in Inglewood. It was a magical, yet surreal, moment especially since I got to see him up close at his final show on Saturday (yes, I did make eye contact with him for a split second and I will never forget it). 

I just want to take a second to appreciate the plot of the show which included mostly movers, LED washers, LED floor mounted and rotating bars, eight moving spots, LED panels that lined the giant intersected screens, 2 disco balls, and glowing stages aligned with a few movers on either end of the runway set-up stage. There was a makeshift control booth hanging in mid air. Also, the Forum exterior was lit up in different colors each night with his name spelled out on the edges of the venue and the inside courtyards has gorgeous ambience lighting that mimic his blue and pink “Fine Line” album cover palette. I’ve never seen lighting play such a large role in the outside design or decoration of a venue before. It was phenomenal and it made everything feel even more special, lighting design is just so powerful. 

Anyhow, this week’s topic is Obsession, and I would like to direct us towards a special song by Mr. Harry Styles is called “Woman”. The song tells a story about what I think is to be a bad relationship/ex-girlfriend of his that he is still fixated on. At first, he is making general statements about how jealous he is of his ex’s new boyfriend, “I'm selfish, I know, But I don't ever want to see you with him”, but then he starts diving into more intimate details about other things he is jealous about, “I hope you can see, the shape I've been in, While he's touching your skin, He's right where I should, where I should be. But you're making me bleed” showing how he is overthinking and potentially obsessing about situations between his ex and new person that may or may not have happened yet. It also sounds like he is fixated about their intimacy, and what they are doing together and begins to want her back. It’s a great song, 10/10 I would highly recommend. 

Unfortunately, there is not a music video for this song which I believe the lighting design would be completely different from the concert lighting design that I saw as concert design is more on the fun side rather than getting down to specifics like we do in theater. 

At the concert, there was a bluish to indigo pulsating wash on stage with moving turquoise swirl textures hitting the inside ring of the stage. There were lighting blue and pink pipe ends like angles on the crowd that had a chase effect on them, where they. The magenta angled floor lights helped pop the band a bit more, and offered a break away from the blue theme going on; they also had a chase effect going on and changed to blue whenever the word “Woman” was sung. The LED bars in pink that surrounded the top of the intersected screens arose in intensity during that same part of the song which added a nice kinetic spice to the overall look. There was always a spotlight of Harry of course, and any of the band members that had a solo. In addition, there was a live video effect happening on the LED screens that made the shadows on the subject look indigo and surround them in a layered video that looked like a flamed or distorted looking border around the subject. Lastly, because of how giant the screens, the colors of the video effects would fall onto the audience creating a wash over them.

I like the Indigo, since it is between blue and purple it is what I call a "conflict color" or a color that is in-between two colors with certain meanings so it could bounce back in fourth between either, if you want to take it that far (which I would). Blue taking on more of a sad feeling and purple being lustful or sometimes moody making Indigo bounce between these two. At first, I did not understand the pink, but then again the song is called "Woman" and the lighting designer might've wanted to play on the pink=feminine idea. The swirl texture is an element of the design that I thought was very cool. The song is about overthinking which leads to an obsession, and the swirls are a fun way to display that aspect almost like they are saying "these thoughts are driving me crazy". Also, the pulsating effects added a nice touch, since this song grows in intensity lyrically, the lights do the same. I might be reading into this a bit much as, again, it is concert lighting design and every choice does not have a specific meaning tied to it. 

My apologies for the slightly blurry pictures, I tried my best. Also, here is a link to a video of the song/performance that I took so you can see these color changes and affects happen rather than trying to picture my not great descriptions.