Niall Horan rocks Comerica Theater following AMA win
Less than 24 hours after winning an American Music Award for “New Artist of the Year”, Niall Horan performed in front of a packed audience of all ages at the Comerica Theater in downtown Phoenix. Horan, thanked the crowd for their love, support, and appreciation for making his solo-debut album “Flicker” number-1 in the United States.
Niall Horan is an Irish musician who rose to fame in 2010 as a member of the band, “One Direction.” The world famous boy band went on hiatus starting in 2015. This allowed the boys to go off on their own as solo artists which proved quite successful in Horan’s case.
Gavin James got things started, opening the show with his news single, “Hearts On Fire.” He even performed a cover of Louis Armstrong’s, “What a Wonderful World,” during which he did impressions of both Armstrong and his trumpet.
James was able to get the crowd excited and laughing by repeating the title of his songs many times. He performed with nothing but his acoustic guitar and voice, never missing a high note.
Thirty minutes after James’ performance, the theatre went dark. The crowd jumped to their feet and cheered as Niall Horan walked on stage. The bass dropped and so began Horan’s ‘The Tide’.
The stage was full of smoke and multi colored lights. Every song had built up to an emotional crowd and even made Horan emotional. Before performing what he considers to be his most important song,’Flicker’, Horan asked the crowd to get very quiet and to turn off their cellphones. Everyone fell silent, or to a whisper, and there was hardly a cellphone in sight.
What Horan didn’t know was that some fans had organized with the rest of the audience so that when Flicker was played, the audience would form the Irish flag using the flashlights on their phones and some orange and green paper. As he sang, everyone slowly raised their flashlights in the air and joined him in the chorus. The flag was alive and waving.
“That was not nice! You can all go home now,” Horan said jokingly after the song. ”By the way, that was beautiful. Thank you. I never know what’s going on in the crowd every night. Thank you for being like that; that was a nice moment and we all shared it!”
As he continued the set, he surprised the crowd with the return of James. They performed a duet of Bruce Springsteen’s,’Dancing in the Dark’. This was the first duet they did all tour as well as the first time Horan played the Harmonica on stage.
The night continued with cheers, laughs, and even tears from some audience members. A roar of screams, however, came when Horan said that this was his favorite gig in the tour. Horan even joked about moving to Phoenix.
“You are a really, really nice crowd to play in front of, I really appreciate it,” Horan said right before closing the night with ‘On My Own’.
