HOW DID WE GET HERE? LOUIS TOMLINSON ARRIVES IN MANCHESTER
LIVE REVIEW| LOUIS TOMLINSON | CO-OP LIVE ARENA | 24th April 2026 by Nora Toth
Following the great success of his third solo studio album ‘How Did I Get Here?‘ back in January, on April 24th Louis Tomlinson kicked off the UK leg of his long awaited tour Manchester’s Co-op Live Arena.
Starting this new era off in Europe, Louis completed 19 shows all around the continent before making his way back home to another 7 times, thus completing the EU/UK part of this tour.
As fans will know, Louis hand picks supports for every single tour, giving opportunities for smaller artists that they wouldn’t have without him. Pale Waves were chosen to open for the entirety of the tour, Alex Spencer opened for most of the European shows before ADMT took over for the rest.
Manchester will always be a special show for Louis Tomlinson as both his first and last X-Factor audition took place in this city. He always reminisces on this, talking about how he wouldn’t be here, doing what he’s doing, without One Direction.
The set started off with a mix of his biggest songs and most hyped from the new album. ‘Lemonade‘ and ‘On Fire‘ played before some big songs from his second album, Faith In The Future, with ‘Written All Over Your Face‘, ‘Out of My System‘ and ‘Bigger Than Me‘ hitting before transitioning into some slower, more emotional songs. ‘Saturdays‘, ‘Dark to Light‘, ‘Broken Bones‘ played out before Louis ended the first section of the show with an acoustic performance of fan favourite ‘Defenceless‘ from his debut solo record, Walls.
After the whole band made their way to the end of the question mark-shaped catwalk, they started the second section of the show with ‘Just Hold On‘, a track Tomlinson previously collaborated with Steve Aoki for. More songs from the new album came next: ‘Lazy‘, ‘Sunflowers‘ and finally ‘Lucid‘ where fans had orchestrated a fan-project, holding orange bits of paper over their phone torches and people in the standing pit holding up signs saying: ‘LOOK HOW FAR WE’VE COME’.
Back to the main stage, a great mix of all 3 albums were performed: ‘Jump the Gun‘, ‘Imposter‘, ‘Lucky Again‘, ‘Sanity‘. But the fan moment of the night was easily ‘Kill My Mind‘, where fans created a beautiful light show during the bridge. Putting their phone flash-lights up and down in time with the music was a truly beautiful sight to watch that only added to the amazing anticipation of the song.
Continuing, Louis played ‘Face The Music‘, ‘Silver Tongues‘ before finishing off with ‘The Observer‘.
For the encore, Louis performed an acoustic rendition of ‘The Answer‘ and massive fan favourite ‘Miss You‘ which he has been performing every night of this tour.
Manchester was a benchmark moment for Louis, one which gave fans an exclusive performance of the One Direction song ‘No Control‘. Usually Louis performs at least one One Direction song during his shows, choosing to focus solely on his solo music for this particular tour, so it’s safe to say the shock factor was massive when this song started. To end the entire show off, ‘Palaces‘ was performed, keeping up the energy while also having the exact vibe of a song you’d like to hear to end off a brilliant show.
Louis Tomlinson will be taking the ‘How Did We Get Here’ World Tour to North America then Australia next, but you can still catch him as he continues his UK tour this week in Brighton, before concluding with a huge performance at London’s O2 Arena. You can also catch Louis at BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend in Sunderland on 23rd May – last tickets available here.
