Harry Styles paid tribute to his late One Direction bandmate Liam Payne at Madison Square Garden on Friday (Oct. 16), debuting an unreleased song he wrote for his friend on the second anniversary of Payne’s death.
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Performing as part of his 30-night residency at the New York venue, Styles paused to address the crowd before the tribute. “I feel incredibly lucky to get to play these shows here in New York, and this building means a lot to me,” he said, reflecting on the people who had shaped his life. “And two years ago today, I lost one of those friends.”
“I’m sure a lot of you have been through similar things. I hope you haven’t. But really, it’s just about looking after each other,” Styles continued. “So many people who have touched my life in such special ways, I wouldn’t be here without. I’m gonna play you a song I wrote for my friend about two years ago, if that’s all right.” He then introduced the song by name — “This is ‘What Is Enough’” — and performed its live debut.
Payne, who rose to fame alongside Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik in One Direction, died in October 2024 at age 31. The group, which formed on the U.K.’s The X Factor in 2010 and went on hiatus in 2016, remains one of the best-selling boy bands of all time, with four consecutive No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200. In the two years since Payne’s death, each surviving member has returned to making music.
The tribute came amid a landmark run for Styles. His Together, Together Tour — in support of his fourth studio album, Kiss All the Time, Disco Occasionally — includes a record-breaking 30-show residency at Madison Square Garden, for which Ticketmaster reported 11.5 million people registered for presale access. A two-time Grammy winner, Styles has topped the Billboard Hot 100 with “Watermelon Sugar” and “As It Was” — the latter spending 15 weeks at No. 1 — and scored three consecutive No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 as a solo artist.
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