Louis Tomlinson released his debut album, Walls, on January 31, 2020, and kicked off his world tour six weeks later in March of that same year. He performed two shows in Spain before postponing the rest of his tour due to rising concerns surrounding the COVID-19 global pandemic. The Louis Tomlinson World Tour (LTWT) resumed on February 1, 2022, in the United States. The first leg of his tour included twenty-seven shows in the United States and Canada, with his final two shows occurring at the 6,000-seat YouTube Theater in Inglewood, California. Louis successfully sold out both nights. At each of these shows, Louis didn’t disappoint in his bluegreening ways that we have come to expect at many of his LTWT shows. Below is my account of the bluegreening I witnessed at both Inglewood shows, most of which happened on Night One (N1).
I arrived at the YouTube Theater adorning a rainbow flag draped across my shoulders for N1 of the LTWT Inglewood shows. I walked up to the main entrance, which was located adjacent to the SoFi stadium (home to the Los Angeles Rams American football team). My GA floor ticket was denied entry and an employee instructed me to walk around the property to the floor entrance doors located on the south side of the Theater. I made my way towards a sidewalk that I thought would lead me to the south entrance, but I ended up at the VIP/media entrance guarded by security instead. For its degree of importance, I was surprised to find it had only a singular table and not much fanfare surrounding the entrance.
There was one item that immediately caught my eye: perched in the center of the mostly empty check-in table was a white vase with artificial sunflowers in full bloom on display. Hmm, I thought to myself, let’s file that under “Everything reminds me of Harry Styles, like, ALL the time.” So I did, and moved on with the task of getting inside the venue. I found the appropriate sidewalk and made my way towards the correct GA Floor entrance. As I rounded the theater, I noticed the roof was colored bluegreen.
I chuckled at the irony, snapped a photo on my ancient cell phone, and kept going on my way.
At the correct entrance, I was given my GA Floor wristband (it was green with black guitars on it) and allowed entry into the venue. The lobby of the Theater’s ground level was bright green with white accents.
Hmm. Green wristband and green lights. Interesting, I thought to myself. I made my way down to the floor and noticed half of the backstage was exposed for our viewing pleasure and the color backstage was – surprise, surprise – blue!
The Theater’s lobby was green and the Theater’s backstage lighting was blue. The sunflowers, rooftop, lobby lighting, and backstage lighting were four bluegreening connections just on the first night, and this was before the show even started. Just a coincidence? oBvIoUsLy.
The rest of N1 was fantastic, as predicted and as expected. Louis sang beautifully. He gave 110% to his performances and to the crowd. He was buzzing the entire night, feeding off the energy of the fans screaming at the top of their lungs. Louis engaged with his fans so much this night. You may have heard about him constantly pointing to rainbow flags up in the balcony on N1. He was really interested in those fans and their queer pride flags. Bottom line: Louis looked out for his fans. Security helped his fans. Fans looked out for one another. Louis didn’t have to stop the show at all because everyone looked out for everyone else. Overall, it was an absolutely beautiful night to experience, in spite of the stunting that was happening in the VIP booth (my observations of his VIP guests interacting – or, more accurately, not interacting – with Louis and his music is for another day!). Many of us fans left the concert on a massive high, looking forward to returning the next night to do it all over again.
Night Two (N2) started out with much less bluegreening fanfare. I did not accidentally run into the VIP table with artificial sunflowers and I did not observe the roof’s lighted colors. I arrived at the same entrance from the previous night, scanned my ticket, and stuck out my wrist for an employee to put on my GA Floor wristband. This is when I realized just how unhinged Louis was during his final two shows. The wrist band was blue (!!!) with stereo speakers on it.
Louis “green eyes fried rice I could cook an egg on you” Tomlinson used green and blue wrist bands for his two closing U.S. LTWT shows. I mean, c’mon Louis. Could he be any louder on N2? Oh wait, yes he could: during N2’s Drag Me Down performance, the stage lights alternated between blue and green. This man has no chill.
So. Sunflowers at VIP/media check-in, bluegreen theater lights, bluegreen venue lighting, bluegreen wristbands, and bluegreen lights during a One Direction song that is iconically linked to Harry’s impressive vocal range. Coincidences or Conspiracies? Yes. Yes to both. oBvIoUsLy
