Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles have been together for more than a decade now but, due to severe closeting within the music industry, they have not been able to publicly acknowledge their love for one another. To compensate for that, they both use subtleties to hint at the public that they are still together and still going strong. One of the ways they do this is live, on tour, acknowledging fans who are also hinting at larry being real. In Inglewood, at Louis Tomlinson World Tour (LTWT) nights one and two, I was one of these fans.
On March 12, 2022, two of my friends and I arrived at the Youtube Theater for LTWT night 1 with Rainbow Bondage Bear (RBB) in tow, as well as whiteboards which we intended to use as signs. We had front row seated tickets and one of my friends had a pit ticket as well. Because we didn’t camp we ended up in the wrong line and had to try to track down our wristbands.
During the wristband hunt we ended up in an elevator with another family and I noticed one of the kids wearing Louis merch. I told him I liked his shirt and he said, “Thanks, I have a lot of them.” It’s important to note that I was speaking directly to this child while holding a phone case with photos of Larry on it, RBB, and wearing a blue bandana. The parent of the child did not ask me to stop speaking to her son or anything of the sort.
We finally got the wristband and headed to our seats where we saw JD, Louis’ head security guard, standing off to the side. At this point, the lights are still on and RBB is still out as well as my phone. I call out to JD, “Thank you for protecting Louis!” In response he makes a heart with his hands. Later on, we found out the family in the elevator with us was JD’s wife, mother in law, and two youngest children.
The show begins and Louis comes out strong! We start our whiteboard signs with “we sold our plasma for you” which he noticed during “Drag Me Down.” Following that my friend held up a sign, “I’m here for Steve,” which is important later. During “Just Hold On” Louis came over and pointed at my “you saved me” sign. At this point we know he knows where we are and we’re easily recognizable due to the whiteboards and the fact that we were front and center of our section. During “Habit” he points at another girl’s sign, on the opposite side of the venue, that says “we know who ‘Habit’ is about.”
The next time we were noticed by Louis isn’t until he’s performing the cover “Beautiful War.” When he sees our sign, “we see you fighting,” he takes a second to read, then walks over to Charlie and points at us with two fingers. Charlie disappears off the stage and comes out during “Through the Dark.” He walks straight up to us, films our signs which now say “you got this,” our phone cases, which also have several larry pics on them, and my tattoos, which are all larry related.
Throughout the whole show there was this group of guys standing in front of us, at the back of the pit. They didn’t really seem like they knew what was going on, weren’t really singing along or paying much attention to the stage, and were on their phones quite a bit but they seemed to be having a good time nonetheless. They keep looking at our signs and, at one point, even tell us they don’t think we’re being “loud enough.” Which we thought was funny but didn’t think anything more about them. After the show one of them walks up to us and shows us a picture he took of the “I’m here for Steve” sign and tells us that he’s going to show Steve the pic because he’ll think it’s funny. Then walk backstage where obviously no “fans” are allowed.
When the floor was starting to clear out, I went up to one of the venue security guards to ask if I could throw a phone case with larry pics all over it onto the stage. She looked at it and told me to “wait until tomorrow night because you’ll have better luck.”
Before arriving to the venue on night two, we made some preparations and had an AIMH banner made which we successfully brought in and before the show started we held up RBB and SBB and the crowd roared. Then, it was time for the show to begin and we had the same seats for both nights so when Louis came out we wrote “we’re back, night two” on our whiteboards so he (and Charlie) recognize we are the same girls from night 1. We held up several signs but none that were noticed until “Always You” when we held up the AIMH banner but when he saw it and didn’t acknowledge it, we decided to put it down because we were nervous we had upset him. But then, during “7” he came over and pointed at RBB again so that refueled us and we continued larrie-ing.
Next thing we know, “Defenceless” starts and Charlie comes out to film us but we don’t notice at first until I look down to switch my phone out for my disposable camera, when I realized who it was I hit my friend on the arm and we freaked out. I, again, point to my tattoos w my phone case which charlie films, then serenades us before walking away. He did not film a single other person and keep in mind, we had the banner out before this while he was on stage, so there’s no way he didn’t know we were larries at this point.
Fast-forward to “Beautiful War” and this time we decide to write “it’s worth fighting for” on our signs and you’ll never guess who pops up again. Charlie. This time while he’s filming I scream that I love him so much and after filming us, he walks over and films some girls at the back of the pit for a while before heading backstage. After the show he walks out and sees my friend sobbing so he says he’ll come back and goes to film the girls in the back of the pit again. On his way back across people are literally tapping his shoulder and screaming his name and he ignores them but then my friend and I yell his name and he looks up and beelines to us. At which point I ask if we’re annoying him and he says “no”. When he makes it over to us, I show him a picture of a drawing we made at the beach that says “we u Charlie” and he laughs. I then asked him to give a present to Louis (which is another one of the larry phone cases and a peace ring) he looks at it and says that he’s really sorry but he can’t take anything and then i ask for a picture and he says yes and pulls my friend and I down into the pit to take a picture w us (and then he asks if he looks okay which is irrelevant but still super cute) despite the security guards being very adamant that nobody was allowed into the pit at any time without a wristband which they were still clearly enforcing after the show.
Since Charlie rejected us when we asked if he could deliver the gift to Louis, I decided to go down and ask security if they could give it to him and was told that they were unable to but that I could throw it on stage and there was a chance he would get it. This was really weird to me because they had specifically told us that anyone who threw anything on stage would be asked to leave and right before I got up there, a girl asked if she could throw flowers on stage for him and she was told no. Also worth mentioning, we ended up with one of Steve’s drumsticks and one of Matt’s guitar picks which is not directly related to larry but kind of felt like a sign that we were doing something right.
