That Time I Flew To London To See One Direction

My love affair with One Direction kicked off back in 2012, just before they took over the airwaves — and, subsequently, the world — with their breakout bubblegum hit “What Makes You Beautiful.” Like so many other weak-willed obsessives with a significant void to fill, I got sucked into their specific brand of inelegant boy band charm. I lingered there for years, the way pond scum affixes itself to the surface of stagnant water, until the group announced their inevitable — and likely permanent — hiatus.

But unlike the rise and fall of early-aughts relics *NSYNC, fans were mercifully prepared for 1D’s final curtain call. (It was only a matter of time once ZAYN opted out, after all.) So, once the rumbles of possible disbandment grew too loud to ignore, I decided to actively stave off the potential of any future regrets by dipping into my savings and booking a flight from New York to London, far across the pond, to see what had become the musical center of my world perform one last time. The closer you get to 30, to death, the weightier endings — in all their variations — come to seem.

The show itself — the conclusion of five dates at London’s famed O2 Arena as part of 1D’s 2015 “On The Road Again” Tour — was fun, though also unremarkable, as these things often are when you’ve seen any artist 20 times. Were it not for the specific, personal gravity of it being my last show, I’m not so sure of how high it would rank among all the others. You could feel each member’s mad dash toward the finish line of their time together; they were exhausted, after all. But that forthcoming, definitive ending made all the difference for me, as emotions often do.

Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Liam Payne, and Louis Tomlinson took the stage with familiarity and ease, each of them interacting with the audience members closest to them in proximity. It was a delight to watch the unfettered joy an offhanded wave could produce in even the most cynical attendee. In this age of perpetual, constant contact, those moments were imperative in solidifying One Direction’s unofficial thesis statement of the evening, of their entire career, that their fans place highest at No. 1.

I have said it elsewhere, but I will say it again: “Girl Almighty”— a peppy Paul Simon rip featuring nonsensical lyrics a la The Beatles’ “I Am The Walrus” — is One Direction’s truest anthem. It remains one of music’s purest celebrations of young women (“Let’s have another toast to the girl almighty / Let’s pray we stay young, stay made of lightning”). Few artists are as unwavering in reciprocating appreciation and affection as One Direction, who admittedly owe a significant bulk of their fame and fortune to their unrelenting fan base, and the guys did their best to make it clear to the crowd that night and beyond: You deserve this more than we do, thank you, thank you, thank you. 

Throughout the night, it slowly, but definitively, sunk in: This was it. For one final time before me, the four remaining members of One Direction bounded about stage with limitless energy, taking on the graceless affectations of a colony of freshly released feral cats, awash in the warm glow of freedom, after a failed attempt at temporary domestication left them abandoned by their flustered captors. No matter who may come after 1D, the truth is I will miss them, in all their particular clumsiness and charisma.

I openly wept as I walked away from the O2 Arena that night, hunched over like Quasimodo and sporting a similarly bloated, contorted face, so pronounced and readable was my devastation. All at once I came to realize that the wrench that had been haphazardly tossed into the cogs so long ago had finally caused irreparable damage to the One Direction machine. Its insides had rusted to the point of deterioration; whole chunks broke off in pieces before ultimately crumbling to dust. Simon Cowell’s most lucrative creation would soon be out of working order for the foreseeable future and quite possibly forever. But if I had to lose One Direction, at least it meant I’d had them at all.

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