Zayn Malik, O2 Academy Leeds: A touching ‘love you bro’ tribute to Liam Payne
Zayn Malik became the first former One Direction member to venture back on stage following the death of Liam Payne in October. No direct mention was made of his late bandmate during his set, but Zayn departed the stage to a projection displaying Liam’s name, the dates 1993-2024, and the simple message “Love you Bro” with a heart emoji. An audience of twenty-something women lingered on, hugging each other and singing along to the recorded version of Zayn’s song Stardust, investing a lot of emotion into a suddenly rather elegiac lyric: “Feels like stardust / Floatin’ all around us / Shootin’ right across a / Big black sky.” It was genuinely touching, and slightly at odds with the controlled hysteria of the rest of the occasion.
I am not saying I was the only man amongst 2,300 attendees at Leeds O2 Academy, but I honestly couldn’t see another around me, nor make out a male voice amidst the deafening roar that greeted Zayn’s arrival onstage. This was a partisan audience who have loved the 31-year-old singer and songwriter since he was the moody, doe-eyed one in the 21st century’s biggest boy band. They came to scream, and did so in all the appropriate places, listening reverently to Zayn’s fluid falsetto and sensual balladry, then signalling the end of every song by emitting a collective sound many decibels louder than the accomplished, all-female band itself.
Zayn seemed delighted and abashed. “F--k yeah!” were the first words that came out of his mouth. “What do I say? Amazing!” Bradford born and raised, his Yorkshire accent was thick with pleasure as he declared love for his home county. “It’s good to be back up north, can’t lie. Got a doner kebab yesterday. Miss that s--t!”
His presence in the flesh was far removed from the moody international playboy image projected in photographs, or the sophisticated lover of his solo recordings. He was dressed in baggy hip hop casual wear and a Tupac T-shirt, with a red baseball cap pulled tight on his head, and he looked somewhere between thrilled and terrified. He spent the entire set either clutching his mic with near desperation or shuffling awkwardly around the mic stand, arms hanging limply by his sides, nodding with his eyes closed.
Zayn postponed the opening night of his first solo tour last week to attend Payne’s funeral, so this was understandably a nerve-wracking occasion. It has been nine years since Zayn became the first member to quit One Direction, and he has made his personal discomfort and artistic dissatisfaction with the boyband format known. Such was his anxiety and disillusion with performing that it has taken him this long to venture out on the road. He seemed to understand he has ground to make up. After a strong start (2016 album Mind of Mine was a global number one) his recorded career has drifted into the doldrums. Leeds O2 Academy is a respectable venue, but it’s a long way down from the stadiums he used to play with 1D.
It was a qualified success. Zayn can sing like an R’n’B angel, riffing through the octaves and fluttering on a fluid falsetto. He was always the best vocalist in the band, and he’s even better performing his own material, thoughtful and emotional songs that blend R’n’B tropes with timely flavours of acoustic country and rock. Zayn has the makings of a superstar but it’s hard to understand how anyone can be famous for that long and be so entirely lacking in stagecraft. He could do with an injection of his former bandmate Harry Styles’s swagger and charisma instead of looking like he’s still nervously auditioning for Simon Cowell on The X Factor. Maybe it will come as the tour rolls on. The best you can say about Zayn is that he’s moving in the right direction.
Zayn’s Stairway to the Sky UK tour continues until December 9 (inzayn.com)