'Eras Tour' in Arlington Sees Taylor Swift At Her Best Yet

Tyler Glover Photo

by Tyler Glover
Are you “...Ready For It?”

I think I can speak for every Swiftie in the world when I say we were all dying with anticipation to see Taylor Swift in concert again. The last time Swift toured was in 2018 with the blockbuster event, “Reputation: The Stadium Tour.” She had originally planned a 2020 tour called “Lover Fest” that was unfortunately canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Swift has dropped tons of new music since then. Following Lover in 2019 was folklore and evermore in 2020. In 2021, Swift dropped two of her re-recorded albums Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version) as a part of her mission to reclaim her masters. Then, last year in October, Swift released her tenth studio album, Midnights to massive critical and commercial acclaim. With all this new music, how would Swift do a tour? Would it just be for Midnights and neglect the other albums? Absolutely not! Swift announced “The Eras Tour,” a show that would go through all of the eras of her career. For ordinary artists, it would be called a greatest hits tour but Swift has shown us all, she is anything but ordinary.

Part of what has made Swift arguably the biggest pop star on the planet is her shifts into these different eras throughout her career. She has transitioned from country to pop to indie/folk and back to pop. Each career shift has brought her more fans that have consequently looked into her past music upon becoming a fan in her newer eras. It has not only been a great creative move for Swift but also a bold one - a move that has paid off for her big time. Every album has its own color associated with it, its own vibe, its own theme, and its own sound. This is why this could never have been called a “Greatest Hits” tour. This is not a night with a singer sitting on a stool or at the piano simply singing all their hits. For Swift, a tour of her career is a transformation! The “Eras Tour” allows us to revisit all the different versions of Swift that we have all grown to love over the last 17 years. The “Eras Tour” came with very high expectations and Swift delivered not only the best concert of her career.

I had the absolute pleasure of seeing “The Eras Tour” on Saturday, April 1st at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. It was a beautiful spring day with the sun shining as bright as all of the sequins on all of the 70,000 fans waiting to enter the stadium. Everywhere you looked, someone was dressed as a different era. I have thrown two Taylor Swift-themed birthday parties in the last two years where my friends and I have dressed up as different eras of Taylor. At this event, it was like a continuation of this party but surrounded by so many more people with the goal of honoring the queen of pop music.
 
Swift could have gone about this show in so many ways. She could have gone in chronological order taking us from 2006 to now, she could have grouped everything by genre, or she could choose the order herself. What Swift did was truly magnificent! Swift started with the Lover set taking us into full pop. She then transitioned to country with Fearless and then to her indie/folk genre with evermore. The most jarring transition was from evermore to reputation. Swift took us from the log cabin in the calm woods to the city dive bar like we were in a “Getaway Car.” What I truly think worked about this order was that it highlighted her versatility as an artist. We truly see an artist that has grown and expressed her truth in so many different ways.
 
What made this concert a must-see event was Swift’s commitment to truly bring the eras to life. We get a log cabin, trees in the forest, city lights, a lit-up guitar on the stage, glow-in-the-dark motorcycles, fire, and a truly creepy snake. Swift dresses the parts of those eras to pure perfection. We are taken back to Swift as a country artist with her fringe dress and cowgirl boots holding her guitar. We got her beautiful multi-colored leotard and shiny boots for Lover. She wears a beautiful gown when singing “Enchanted” from the fairytale album, Speak Now. Every set and costume highlighted each era perfectly and allowed us all to encounter the version of Swift that led to us going by the title: “Swiftie.” 
 
Swift sings a whopping 44 songs from her discography. Forty-two of these have stayed almost completely the same with two surprise songs that she has been singing differently at every stop. The two surprise songs we were treated with were “Death By A Thousand Cuts” and “Clean.” Both of these songs are in my top 30 of my favorite Swift songs so I was thrilled with these choices.

Another aspect of Swift’s shows that are special is that her fans are devoted. They listen to the entire album and learn all the words. I have been to many other concerts and you will notice the crowd will sing really loudly on the songs that were on the radio but you notice a huge decline in singing when it is a song just on the album. This does NOT happen at a Swift concert. You can hear the crowd singing every single song and every single lyric during a Swift show. It really shows us all that music is something that can unite us and Swift is an artist that truly highlights this.

“The Eras Tour” was everything I could have wanted it to be. I have tickets to go see the show again in Nashville on May 5th. I have never been happier to say that I get to see a show for a second time in person.

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