Taylor Swift's recent single "Karma" is whether the titular force is something that can be aggressively courted. And, if so, is issuing $100,000 bonus checks to tour truck drivers a form of metaphysical insurance payout? These are the deep thoughts that may woozily cross your mind on the Eras Tour, as the clock approaches midnight while Swift closes things out by performing “Karma” at the end of a marathon 3-hour, 25-minute set. . It's a strange and fun ending that leaves the audience with the idea that virtue is even better than revenge, or that perhaps they can amount to the same thing.
Swift is rewarding her good fortune with an exhaustive and exciting show that is making millions of international fans justifiably happy. As witnessed again at Thursday night's performance at the Los Angeles area's SoFi Stadium, the first of a six-night tour in Inglewood, California, the Eras Tour represents the apotheosis of what an eras tour can be. a pop superstar. It's hugely overscaled, strangely intimate and even, at its core, extraordinarily musical in a way we don't expect, much less demand, from pop extravaganzas. It feels generous and sweet, and it absolutely flexes like a damn acrobat.
Director: Sam Wrench
Stars: Taylor Swift, Amanda Balen, Taylor Banks
"I can't believe I'm saying this," Swift told the crowd early in Thursday's show, "but this is the last city on the American leg of the Eras Tour, and we really wanted to spend it somewhere special." The praise will get her everywhere, but there's one asterisk she could have put in that statement and didn't, and that's that SoFi's run marks the end of just one run of the tour in the US, as she announced earlier that same day. adding dates in North America for fall 2024, although more in what seems like a regional clean-up exercise than a full-scale return after the world tour of Latin America, Asia and Europe coming next year. No matter: Angelenos like to believe we're special, and we're happy to treat it as an approach to what started in Phoenix four and a half months ago, even if, for the most part, she's barely started.
Any fans who have already seen the tour (which, if you count people who watch illicit and unstable livestreams, means almost everyone), will know that not much has changed on the set since its March opening in Arizona. The most overtly autobiographical song about a love story now known to be broken, “Invisible String,” was removed months ago, in favor of another great song “Folklore” with almost the opposite point of view, “The 1.” “Long Live” was added to the set following the release of the “Speak Now” re-recording. Just a week ago, “Tis the Damn Season” was removed from the “Evermore” portion of the set to make room for “No Body, No Crime,” thanks to that song’s featured artist, Haim, appearing for the last time. section of the route.
For the rest, the map remains the same, except for the two surprise songs that arrive as the penultimate section of the show. On Thursday, the first of these was the highly anticipated live debut of a Vault song that became his latest single, “I Can See You,” treated in concert like a true rocker, even if performed as a solo by acoustic guitar. The other was a never-before-hit “Midnights” song, “Maroon,” even better on piano than entangled in Jack Antonoff's burgeoning record co-production.
The biggest change for Los Angeles might have been something as seemingly basic as the glowing bracelets left in the roughly 70,000 seats before the doors opened, creating a light show far beyond anything seen at the start of the tour. When Swift launched into her abbreviated version of “You Need to Calm Down,” perhaps not needing to be predicted, the SoFi audience turned into a huge flashing rainbow flag in surround vision.
It probably wouldn't be a spoiler for the rest of the race to reveal that red gets special consideration, but clearly a lot of thought, as well as effort, went into the color coding for each of the nearly 45 numbers that carry the The audience's dolls in the image, above and beyond what will look like glorified glow sticks the next time you see an artist handing out these trinkets. It has a particularly striking effect on the senses at SoFi Stadium, which, built deep into the ground, is so extreme in its mid- and upper-seating areas that it's almost like being surrounded by canyon walls, now glowing with alien forces. benign. .
Therefore, he explained, touring behind four new albums instead of one. The thought driving her toward an eventual tour, Swift explained, was: "How cathartic would it be to be able to sing 'Champagne Problems' with you?" She was even kind enough to yell “Bridge!” just before we get to one of this decade's strangest sing-along baits: a forceful reading of a passage describing the rejection of a marriage proposal, including the line "Shame on me for being screwed in the head!" This isn't the part of what Swift does that would necessarily explain to tweens in the audience, but the 30-and-up audience who grew up with Swift certainly recognizes the value of the songwriter being outrageously free in sharing his neuroses, probably over all in “Anti-Hero”. The day “Midnights” premiered last fall, we confidently predicted that it would be deeply cathartic to hear an entire stadium singing “I'm the problem, it's me,” and, dear reader, it feels like just as wonderful a moment of joy. massive humility as anyone could have expected.
What's surprising about the Eras Tour setlist is how many climaxes it has along the way, and with the recent addition of "Long Live," a song that's never done anything but close shows until now, it wouldn't be surprising if some members I think it's the lead-up to a break in the encore, rather than just a casual midpoint in the process.
But what's especially satisfying about this is that, by the time Swift closes the show with seven selections from last fall's “Midnights” album, the obvious hits of her career are already out of the way. In that last, more relaxed section, she feels as if we have joined the artist in a nightclub, with music that sounds like a club, even if it includes some of her most sophisticated lyrics. The after party has been integrated into the structure of the show. And how many superstars would end a hit-filled show with “And now here's a solid half hour of my new album” and make it feel like a welcome and even deliriously appropriate conclusion, not a forced one?
By the time the “Midnights” material begins, Angelenos may be tempted to act like Angelenos—that is, to start running toward the car to beat traffic, like Dodger fans confident that they're on the road. stock market and that nothing important could actually happen. the last couple of entries. But that would be a mistake on this show: yes, the show has already climaxed 25 times, and this is the end. But “Karma” – and karma – requires taking it to the end.
Chances are we won't see a tour like this where life flashes before our eyes again, not even from Swift. The memory of that epic-long bond will be more than just a relaxing thought, if her Eras are the ones that help define yours, as only great pop can do.
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