Taylor Swift doesn’t want to perform. It’s night two at Liverpool’s Anfield Stadium, and two of her dancers are propping her body back onto her feet. In response, she limply flops back down onto a red couch, face twisted into the pout of a toddler about to throw a tantrum. After a few slaps to the face and an on-stage outfit change into a dazzling gold jacket, she relents, putting on a compliant face for the crowd and leading her troupe of backing dancers who return to stage with plumes of feathers and top hats.
This is, of course, pure theatre; a dramatic introduction to ‘I Can Do It With A Broken Heart’ – a song that depicts Swift’s ability to stun on stage even when she’s going through it. It’s also one facet of the pop superstar’s showmanship, creating a performance within a performance, and one that’s filled with humour and lightheartedness amid the grandiose settings of a stadium tour.
Throughout The Eras Tour so far, Swift has consistently delivered performances that go beyond hitting the high notes and recreating choreography on stage. But this new incarnation of it, which has been altered slightly to include songs from her latest album ‘The Tortured Poets Department’, ups her star power even further. During the new ‘TTPD’ section, alongside musical theatre, we get her kneeling between church pews for ‘But Daddy I Love Him’ before those structures seamlessly become bleachers for ‘So High School’.
For ‘Fortnight’, she’s checked out by nurses and doctors before spinning on a bed opposite a lover, and ‘The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived’ is accompanied by a ‘Black Parade’ (but in white) marching band. During the wicked ‘Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?’, the mirrored platform she stands on levitates across the stage, giving her a spectral edge as she whips her hair with every rage-filled word. At the end of the song, she steps fully into the role of something terrifying and haunting, her expressive eyes replaced by white voids in her image on the big screen behind her.
These new highs aren’t limited just to this fresh section but begin almost from the off. “Liverpool, you just made me feel so amazing,” the star declares with a smile as bright as the red and orange bodysuit she dons for the opening ‘Lover’ segment. We’re only two songs into the concert, but already her showmanship is filling the stadium’s stands. She bends forward and points to sections of the crowd, her finger moving in a clockwise direction, until she’s conducted a full stadium Mexican wave without uttering another word. “That’s immediately gone to my head,” she jokes as she returns to an upright position. “Now you’ve made me feel really, really powerful.”
Even the flashy elements that have been long-running parts of The Eras Tour don’t yet feel tired but still bolster her ability to get a huge crowd united in excitement. The transition between the surprise songs and final era, ‘Midnights’ – in which she dives into a trapdoor in the stage, graphics around her making it look like she’s plunged deep into the ocean to get back to the other end of the runway – hasn’t lost its thrill yet, while the flutter of leaves and falling snow that arrive through ‘All Too Well (10 Minute Version)’ take us through the seasons in effective form. The ‘Folklore’ and ‘Evermore’ eras might have been spliced together to make more room for ‘TTPD’, but the witchy ‘Willow’ remains, Swift draped in a dark velvet cape and her dancers carrying glowing orange orbs that make it look like they’re conducting a ritual in front of our eyes.
Take away the HD production, and the pop icon is still more than capable of giving goosebumps. Her soaring ad-libs at the end of a powerful ‘Don’t Blame Me’ couldn’t be more on point, while ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ finds her fearlessly throwing herself to her knees to emphasise a moment of high drama in the song. During the surprise song segment, she flawlessly stitches together songs from across her back catalogue – tonight we get ‘This Is What You Came For’ (the song she co-wrote for Calvin Harris and Rihanna) teamed up with ‘Gold Rush’, and ‘The Great War’ merged with ‘You’re Losing Me’.
“I think about all the time why I’m having more fun on this tour than I ever have in my whole life,” she shares with the crowd before ‘All Too Well’. Her conclusion is a combination of reliving her favourite memories from the past while simultaneously forging brand new entries. For the fans, The Eras Tour has become a must-see (and must-see-multiple-times) cultural force, not just because Swift is revisiting (almost) every era of her career thus far, but because each show is her consistently at the peak of her phenomenal performance powers. Regardless of whether you’re the world’s biggest Swiftie or just casually curious, by the end of the concert, there’s no denying it – Taylor Swift is pop’s greatest showwoman.
Taylor Swift played:
‘Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince’
‘Cruel Summer’
‘The Man’
‘You Need To Calm Down’
‘Lover’
‘Fearless’
‘You Belong With Me’
‘Love Story’
’22’
‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’
‘I Knew You Were Trouble’
‘All Too Well’
‘Enchanted’
‘…Ready For It?’
‘Delicate’
‘Don’t Blame Me’
‘Look What You Made Me Do’
‘Cardigan’
‘Betty’
‘Champagne Problems’
‘August’
‘Illicit Affairs’
‘My Tears Ricochet’
‘Marjorie’
‘Willow’
‘Style’
‘Blank Space’
‘Shake It Off’
‘Wildest Dreams’
‘Bad Blood’
‘But Daddy I Love Him’
‘So High School’
‘Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?’
‘Down Bad’
‘Fortnight’
‘The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived’
‘I Can Do It With A Broken Heart’
‘This Is What You Came For’ x ‘Gold Rush’
‘The Great War’ x ‘You’re Losing Me’
‘Lavender Haze’
‘Anti-Hero’
‘Midnight Rain’
‘Vigilante Shit’
‘Bejeweled’
‘Mastermind’
‘Karma’
