Niall Horan: ‘One Direction’s first gig was a disaster’

Niall Horan: ‘One Direction’s first gig was a disaster’: Whatever you do, don’t ask Niall Horan about One Direction’s concert debut. “I never want to talk about that gig again,” grimaces the star. “Worst night of my life. The worst One Direction show ever.”

The band were less than a year old when they played the Watford Colosseum in December 2011. They’d just hit number one with What Makes You Beautiful but, despite weeks of live performance on the X Factor, they weren’t quite prepared for the rigors of a full show.

“We’ve refused to talk about it ever since,” says the 24-year-old. “It was a disaster. We were just a joke.

“Anything we rehearsed just went out the window. It was our first ever gig and we just didn’t know what the [expletive] was going on.”

Contrary to his memory, the show got a four star review in the Watford Observer, which praised the “tightness of the vocals”; and fan-shot footage captures a likeable, if ramshackle, trot through the band’s first album.

“Yeah, there was a charm,” admits Horan. “But the second gig was better.”

Of course, One Direction went on to sell out stadiums around the world – but with the band on hiatus, Horan is back in smaller venues again, giving fans a preview of his acoustically-led debut album in a series of intimate gigs in the UK, US, Japan, Australia, Mexico and Europe.

“It’s brilliant, especially with the type of music I’m doing,” he says. “You feel like you’re in someone’s living room.

“With One Direction, we were doing five or six kilometres a night, running around the stage like lunatics.

“There’s none of that now. I’ll probably put on a bit of weight, standing still and playing guitar all the time!”

So far, the singer has released two solo singles – the folky coming-of-age tale This Town and the slyly funky Slow Hands – both of which highlight Horan’s handsomely husky voice.

Crucially, they’ve made an impression outside One Direction’s core fanbase. Slow Hands, in particular, stealthily became one of the songs of the summer.

“It’s been out 15 or 16 weeks now and it’s still creeping up the chart,” says Horan when we meet in late August. “It’s the fourth most-played song on US radio this week, which is just a joke.”

It’s a world away from One Direction’s chart performance, where songs would typically make a strong debut then nosedive out of the Top 10.

“I think it’s just the way streaming is these days,” says Horan. “Before, you’d release a song and you’d know by the end of the week if it was going to be number one or not. Now, you have a chance to get a bit of longevity.

“I think it’s much better. It gives people time to live with the tunes.”

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