Niall Horan
Main Stage
★★★☆☆
Niall Horan is no stranger to performing in front of tens of thousands of fans. But his set on the opening night of Electric Picnic hits a bump in the road. “We are experiencing technical difficulties, please be patient,” reads the on-screen message after the sounds fails as he tries to perform his first song.
It doesn’t faze the 29-year-old from Mullingar, who has come a long way since his One Direction days. Gone is the bleached-blond hair, and with the more natural brunette locks comes a more natural sense of confidence as he steps foot on stage. Though it’s his first time appearing at the festival, you wouldn’t know it. He has a boyish charm, entrancing the youthful, largely female crowd before him.
“Good evening, Electric Picnic. I cannot believe I’m here,” he says to the crowd. “I know you’ve got my back. I’ve been waiting for this night for the past year and a half. Thank you so much for coming out. It’s good to be home.”
His third album, released earlier this year, is called The Show, and a show is exactly what he puts on. His music may not feature as many radio-friendly sensations as that of his former bandmate Harry Styles, but he offers a more thoughtful lyricism. Not that this stops the crowd from dancing, screaming and singing along. Horan has a cheeky smile when the crowd knows his lyrics, as if the star at times forgets that he is, in fact, a well-known name.
Tonight’s set includes covers of Nothing Compares 2 U, in tribute to Sinéad O’Connor, and Tears for Fears’ Everybody Wants to Rule the World, as well as the One Direction smash Story of My Life, before Horan concludes with his crowd-pleaser Slow Hands.
“I wish I could put into words how this felt. From Patrick Street in Mullingar to this. This is a country of less than five million people, and the noise that we make is insane. I love our little country. I love being here tonight,” he says. The love and affection are more than one-sided.
