It’s clearly going to be Harry Styles’ summer. In addition to that record-breaking run of shows at Wembley he’s playing, he’s also currently revelling in the role of taste-maker, by curating this year’s Meltdown Festival.
Meltdown is an annual event at the Southbank Centre in London where over a week a ‘culturally-significant’ artist puts together a programme to reflect their personality. Being asked to curate it is some honour, one bestowed previously on the likes of David Bowie, Patti Smith, Scott Walker and Nick Cave. Cultural heavyweights, in other words.
Anyway, we’re nearly a week into Styles' Meltdown and last night saw the singer team up with the Jules Buckley Orchestra and the Gospel House Choir for a special gig that saw Styles re-interpret his solo back catalogue. Styles himself played the piano and guitar.
“I’ve always been a lover of orchestral music, classical music, and it’s quite an intimidating field to step into as someone who doesn’t - cannot - read music,” Styles told the crowd. "I met Jules and we worked together and I’ve never felt so welcomed into the space. He never made me feel like I didn’t belong there in any way, and it’s been beautiful collaborating with him.”
The setlist drew upon all four of his solo albums, including the recently released Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally. And the singer rounded the thirteen-song set with a cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Waters. You suspect more than a few tears were shed...
The festival still has another five days to run, and among the diverse attractions to come are ‘For Vini: A Tribute To The Durutti Column’ which celebrates groundbreaking guitarist Vini Reilly, there’s ‘the father of Ethio-jazz’ Mulatu Astatke and the composer Beverley Glen Copeland. As well as those there’s also Dev Hynes (of Blood Orange fame), a DJ set from LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy and Belgian shapeshifters Soulwax.
Tickets for all those will be limited, but there are a number of free events too as part of Meltdown – for further information head over to the website at southbankcentre.co.uk
And Styles himself? Well, he’s clearly multitasking at the moment. He’s already played two shows of that run of twelve at Wembley Stadium. The third is tonight.
