Watch Harry Styles Dazzle, Despite Stage Glitch, in New Grammys’ ‘As It Was’ Performance
The 2023 Grammys was nothing short of spectacular for Harry Styles. On top of taking home several awards, one of which being Album of the Year, Harry Styles dazzled the crowd with his glittering outfits and energetic performance of his No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 ‘As It Was.’
The performance featured Styles in a sparkling, silver outfit that flowed with his every move, dancing on a rotating surface, replicating his previous performance with Mathilde Lin in the song’s official music video that was released last March.
For this particular arrangement, Styles was accompanied by several backup dancers to fulfill a demanding routine in which every person had to be in the right place at the right time to keep their movements in flow with the spinning platform.
While the performance appeared seamless from the outside, some of Styles’ backup dancers have since revealed that there was a major technical difficulty on the stage that proved to make the performance much harder to execute. In a now-deleted TikTok, one dancer explained that the platform began spinning in the opposite direction from what had been rehearsed the entire week leading up to the Grammys and consequently required everyone on stage to reverse the entire routine in real-time on live television.
Upon rewatching, many fans were quick to point out that Styles’ actually attempted a subtle cue to fix the issue early on, spinning his finger to signal the proper direction for the platform, but that was to no avail.
oh i’m miserable, harry was the only performer during rehearsal who would watch back his performance on the monitor and fix any flaws because he wanted it to be perfect and then the whole technical difficulties happened 😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/uSL26jtM7F
— 🎂 3X GRAMMY WINNER HARRY STYLES (@blueblrdhoneyy) February 10, 2023
At one point, Styles seemed to lose his balance while jumping off of the platform and onto the main stage but had a quick and smooth recovery as he joined his band to sing the second chorus. Meanwhile, the ensemble of dancers moved dynamically across the rotating stage, melting off and jumping back on effortlessly. When the stage eventually stopped turning for one last dance break, Styles and his dancers were able to give the choreography their all as they were finally standing on solid ground.
Taylor Swift clapping for Harry Styles after his #GRAMMYs performance! 😭 pic.twitter.com/defmG1wWQ0
— Taylor Swift Updates (@SwiftNYC) February 6, 2023
Despite some initial negative comments on this performance, calling it lackluster and boring, people have praised the dancers and Styles himself for their ability to adapt and still give such a moving show in light of unfortunate complications.
While the circumstances may not have been ideal, Harry Styles and his ensemble of dancers displayed an incredible amount of professionalism, truly exemplifying that no matter what, the show must go on.
Check out his performance below.
