By Ainsley Jay
Taylor Swift released her 10th album “Midnights” on October 21st, 2022. On November 1st, 2022, she announced her 6th concert tour, the Era Tour. It was a journey through her 10 different albums: “Taylor Swift” (2006), “Fearless” (2008), “Speak Now” (2010), “Red (2012), 1989 (2014), Reputation (2017), Lover (2019), “folklore” (2020), “evermore”(2020), and “Midnights” (2022). There were re-recordings of albums “Fearless” and “Red” in 2021 called Taylor Version.
The tickets sold out instantly to the point that Ticketmaster crashed. Taylor Swift held concerts at Gillette stadium from May 19th to the 21st.
For the opening act of the concert, there are guest singers touring with Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift is expected to arrive on stage around 8:30. She typically sings two different surprise songs each concert.
I attended on Sunday night. The show started at 6:30 pm with singer-songwriters Gracie Abrams and then Phoebe Bridgers as the opening acts; both are on the tour with her. Gracie Abrams wore a Red Sox shirt while performing. She is relatively new to the music industry. She shares similar music qualities with Taylor Swift – they can both write distinct melodramatic lyrics, often dealing with breakups.
Phoebe Bridgers was called a ‘personal favorite’ by Taylor Swift before the “Nothing New” Performance, a song Phoebe Bridgers is featured in. Phoebe Bridgers rose out of the stage for one final performance of the night to sing ‘Nothing New’ with Swift.
It was a full stadium of approximately seventy thousand. A large number of fans were dressed up as different Taylor Swift eras or copied outfits from music videos. The audience was handed a light up wristband as they entered the stadium. It coordinated to make a light show as she performed.
Taylor Swift rose out of the stage at 8:30 pm as the crowd cheered. She sang 46 songs including two surprise songs. The surprise songs on Sunday were ‘Red’ and ‘I Think He Knows.’
Taylor Swift’s lucky number is famously 13. She shared an anecdote with the audience about how 13 years ago she performed at Gillette Stadium and it was the first football stadium she performed at.
The previous night, on Saturday, there was continuous rain throughout her three hour show. It is likely that fans were worried that Swift might cancel, but impressively, the show went on as scheduled. The inclement weather led to a malfunction during the Sunday show with her piano ruined by the rain. The keys playing weren’t the correct keys she was pressing on. At one moment it even started to play without her touching the keys. She joyfully explained to the crowd what happened. Both she and the crowd were amused by the broken piano.
Taylor Swift puts on an entertaining and energetic performance. She engages with the crowd. She opened up about her experience during covid in when she played songs from the album ‘folklore’ and ‘evermore.’ She referred to them as escapism during covid. When the song ‘Majorie’ played about Taylor Swift’s late grandmother, members of the crowd turned on the flashlights on their phones in her honor.
The choreography and visuals were well done and suited for whatever song is playing.
