Niall Horan in Dublin review: Kingfishr surprise at delightful 3Arena finale
A file image of Niall Horan, who's just completed a run of gigs at 3Arena, Dublin. (Photo by Rich Fury/Getty Images)
★★★★☆
It takes a certain confidence – and an absence of ego – to hand over the stage on the final night of a four-night homecoming stint. Niall Horan is exactly that kind of artist.
As we head towards the closing third of his Dinner Party tour on Friday, he welcomes Kingfishr to the stage. Not to have the rising band of the hour join him for a verse on one of his own tracks. No, he gives them the limelight to perform their own song, before stepping up to the mic to take the lead on their viral hit It shows something else, too – soundness. And an Irish crowd is a particular sucker for that one.
Horan, who first came into the public consciousness via at the ripe old age of 16, was hand-picked to form one of the world’s most successful boybands of all time, One Direction. They went their separate ways back in 2016 and the group's members have had varying degrees of success with their solo careers.
It is evident throughout the two-hour performance in Dublin that Horan hasn't taken his fanbase for granted. It’s there in the pitch perfect vocals, the clever and engaging staging, the constant engagement with his audience. This is clearly an artist passionate about putting on a good show.
The 33-year-old now has four solo records to his name, and tonight’s set draws generously from all of them, offering a pleasing mix of pop and soft rock. His on-stage persona, complete with a button-down shirt exposing chest hair and plenty of two-stepping, lies somewhere between his Mullingar compatriot Joe Dolan and Brandon Flowers of The Killers.
He moves easily from the nostalgia of his first solo release, an ode to both an old lover and small-town life, to bigger stadium numbers like
A particularly poignant nod to the past comes in the form of a deeply moving tribute to his time in One Direction and an acknowledgement of the tragic passing of former bandmate Liam Payne, who died aged just 31 in 2024. “We had it, pure magic,” Horan sings, before the heartbreaking refrain, “feels like letting go of things we're not supposed to.”
As the song draws to a close, the stage falls into darkness, and Horan stands respectively as a a clip of Payne speaking rings out across the arena: “I'm always trying to remind myself of where I came from and where I've managed to get to in my life. It's amazing, really…”
Horan and his band then decamp to the B-stage, a more intimate staging which sees them gathered around a wooden table, pints of Guinness and glasses of wine in hand. A fiddle, banjo and accordion bring a proper trad-session feel to proceedings, with and providing foot-stomping highlights, before Kingfishr arrive for the aforementioned collaboration on prompting one of the biggest singalongs of the night.
In between bangers and Horan takes a few moments to interact with fans in the pit, pointing out posters and chatting to audience members who have travelled from Germany, Bulgaria, Connecticut and Japan.
There are posters featuring pictures of fans as children at One Direction gigs (the audience oohs and ahhs at those), fans who produce gifts for Horan including a sketch of his dog, a collar for his dog... that last gift-giver has a sticker on her top reading: “If lost, please return to Niall Horan”. He laughs good-naturedly at that one.
It’s obvious Horan has a genuine appreciation for his audience. And as the show reaches its conclusion, he once again thanks everyone for making the trek despite the traffic complications around the city due to the visiting politicians.
“Thank you for the last 16 years,” he adds. “Everything, I owe to this country.
“Thank you for putting your hand in your pocket,” he continues, “I hope you got your money's worth, that's all I aim to do.”
It is hard not to smile, and perhaps feel a little proud, watching him. Our Mullingar man might have made it big, but he has clearly managed to keep his feet firmly on the ground.
All that’s left to do is bring proceedings to a close with radio favourites and
As the crowd spills back out onto the quays, nobody seems too bothered by the trek. I think it’s safe to say, we feel we got our money’s worth.
