It’s now a year since the biggest tour ever hit London with three sold out Wembley Stadium shows in June plus another five in August!
I can imagine that quite a few from the area went along to one of those Taylor Swift Eras Shows. I was lucky enough to be one of those that did and I thought I’d leave it a little while to write about it. If I’d written this straight away I’d have been caught up in the euphoria of the event and would have been proclaiming it as one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.
Now with a little bit of time passing I can look at it a bit dispassionately and I can see now that…it actually was one of the best show’s I’ve ever seen! I’ve been to many stadium shows over the years including U2, Coldplay, Pink Floyd, Adele and many more but I really do think this was one of the best.
What made it so good was that it had everything – great songs, performance, musicianship and dancing combined with surely one of the most good natured happy enthusiastic audiences ever.
There were 92,000 people most of whom were singing along word for word to every song, exchanging friendship bracelets and dressing in style for the occasion. We were lucky enough to be there on the night that Ed Sheeran joined as special guest on a couple of songs and I’ve never heard such a crowd roar when he appeared or when he walked down the stage after performing. Was that the highlight of the show though? Well, no, there were just so many highlights throughout the night.
Taylor Swift wasn’t just playing her best songs in a set, as most artists do. The show was divided into the different eras (or album releases for those not up with what that means) each with a different feel, different costumes and different presentation but all absolutely stunning and all showcasing the incredible talent of Taylor.
Some of the highlights for me included the piano based ‘Champagne Problems’ (which resulted in a 3 minute standing ovation), the atmospheric and beautiful ‘August’, the fun danceability of ‘Shake it Off’, the classic ‘Anti-Hero’ and so many more but I think my favourite era during the show was actually ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ which is quite impressive as it’s Taylor’s latest album and therefore shows that she is still coming up with quality new music.
Then again I loved the ‘Reputation’ era section so maybe that was my fave which surprised me as I’d never thought of that album as one of the best (I’ve re-evaluated that now!). Or actually maybe it was the ‘1989’ era but then again the ‘Fearless’ era was brilliant! Oh, I don’t know, it’s so hard to pick as it really was all just so good! There was so much to take in, that it all seemed to go by in a flash, even though it was, a huge 3.5 hour long set!
What a show! And did we scream out the bridge of ‘Cruel Summer’ at the top of our voices? You bet, we did!
If you are new to Taylor Swift’s music and would like to investigate more, check out Chris’s article and playlist that appeared in this paper in June last year – https://rdg.today/the-genius-of-taylor-swift-by-an-older-male-swiftie-yes-they-do-exist/
