Taylor Swift and The Eras Tour – what’s the big deal?

My wife and I went to Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour in Minneapolis (U.S. Bank Stadium where the NFL Vikings play). It was a 3.25 hours/44 song concert that was equally interesting to witness Taylor as it was the 65k Swifties. Visually the show was not as spectacular as 2018’s Reputation Tour, which we also went to, but it exceeded 2018 emotionally with the breadth of the material. Taylor has the ability to make a football stadium intimate. The high quality of the four albums she has released since 2018 provided amazing concert material. There was a post-pandemic sense of celebration in the air. This has been the most hyped tour I can recall, and the obvious question is, did it live up to the hype? My simple answer is yes.

Last fall, the big story was how Taylor Swift broke Ticketmaster when her The Eras Tour tickets went on sale. Tickets were then on the secondary markets for absurd sums (like Super Bowl prices). My wife and I tried to get tickets when they first went on sale, and like most fans, we got skunked. We often buy tickets on the secondary markets, but typically for something close to face value – no way were we going to pay a couple of grand per ticket, and so we put it out of our minds.

About a week before the show, I received a text message from Ticketmaster: “VERY LIMITED number of production hold tickets available for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis! Shop now while supplies last…”. I immediately logged on to my Ticketmaster account, and after about twenty attempts, we got a pair at a reasonable face value. We were thrilled to be able to go. By this point, the tour had visited several cities, and the reviews from professional critics and general fans were glowing. I can’t imagine the FOMO we would have had once the local fans, media, and critics started raving about the Minneapolis shows.

We are 64 and Taylor Swift fans, not obsessed enough to be considered Swifties, just fans. A Swiftie knows every word of every song and obsesses about Taylor’s life. A fan is several degrees lower. Personally, I was familiar with about 75% of the songs at the Minneapolis show, and I could sing along with some of the choruses. I am late to the TSwift party, not pandemic late, but 1989 late. When TSwift came on the scene in 2006, I dismissed her as a Nashville child star gimmick. As she got bigger, I continued to ignore her as just another teen pop star. I wasn’t a hater, just uninterested. I had no idea what she sounded like.

My introduction to TSwift was in 2015 when Ryan Adams (who I am a super fan of) covered Taylor’s 1989 album. Adams is a prolific songwriter, and releasing an album that is a track-by-track cover of Swift’s album of the same name caught my attention. I bought Ryan’s album and loved it, and it motivated me to listen to the Taylor original, which I also liked. What I heard was catchy pop music but also confessional singer-songwriter lyrics that were not that different from my 70s heroes (e.g., Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, Jackson Brown, etc.). Sure, it was sonically current, but it was in the same lane as my 70s singer-songwriter heroes.

About the same time as the 1989 album caught my attention, my adult daughter (who is just a little younger than TSwift) and my wife raved about the TSwift concert they went to. They have both seen a lot of shows and are not easily impressed. I trust their opinions. So she was an entertainer too – interesting.

In 2018 my wife and I went to see Taylor’s Reputation Stadium Tour – I wanted to see firsthand what all the hype was about. I was blown away by the spectacle (it is very visual), the songs (which are autobiographical and intimate), but most of all, Taylor’s stage presence: she is like the ultimate theater kid (both awkward and engaging). After the show, I started listening to the rest of her catalog. The songs are candid yet evasive. It is alluring: who is the ex she is singing about? How is she having so much fun? She creates compelling mythology.

The album Lover came out at the end of the summer of 2019. It was rock solid. We had no idea the world end in six months. This should have been a big album cycle/tour, but it got cut short by Covid.

The summer of 2020 was a bad time: Covid was raging way longer than any of us expected, and the George Floyd tragedy (which occurred less than three miles from our home in Minneapolis) was still raw. It was literally a “Cruel Summer.” Taylor dropped folklore out of the blue. Most of it was co-written/produced by the guy from The National. It wasn’t autobiographical. It had characters, it was quiet and it was adult. It wasn’t meant to be bangers in a stadium. It was an experiment. It totally worked. It was a masterpiece and totally resonated with me (it was dad rock that is right in my wheelhouse). A few months later, a similar style and equally excellent evermore was released. I was now talking TSwift as seriously as the other artists/bands I am a fan of.

Swift has longevity – she is 10 albums and 17 years into her career. None of those albums have stiffed, and some have increased in their appreciation over time. At 33, she is 4 years older than Paul McCartney was when the Beatles broke up. This is a pop career that needs to be taken seriously, whether you like her music or not.

Her most recent album, Midnights, which came out right before the Eras Tour was announced last month, is a return to pop music after the two dad rock albums. It is as strong as anything in her catalog – so 10 albums in and no signs that she is losing her magic.

The show was great. She covered 44 songs via “eras,” representing 9 of her 10 albums (she skipped her debut). The set list has been the same 42 songs with two surprises that are not repeated show to show (we got “Paper Rings” and “If This Was A Movie.” As I mentioned earlier, she has the uncanny ability to make a football stadium intimate. Each era had a unique visual presentation, but the visuals were not that important to me. The folklore and evermore material worked better than I could have ever imagined. Taylor is a more engaging vocalist live than on recordings – I wish she would belt it out like this on studio recordings. The 3-plus hours went quickly, and despite a fixed set list, it felt fresh and spontaneous. Taylor talks a lot and has a knack for making each audience feel special. Ultimately she is a songwriter, but she is also a good entertainer. She totally lives up to the hype.

A bonus is the enthusiasm of the fans. They dress up for the occasion, and they sing along (I didn’t even mind that many screamed along). I sat next to a girl I am guessing was about 12, and sang along with every word of the 44 songs. Occasionally she would absolutely lose her mind when her favorites were played. She was so fun to be next to – it was infectious.

My only complaint is the U.S. Bank Stadium is a terrible concert venue. Great sightlines and a cool-looking venue; however, the acoustics are awful.

The reason Taylor matters is she is a great songwriter and a great entertainer, she creates a sense of intimacy with her audience that is perfect for our social media times, and she works hard. Her demo is primarily women 18 to 35, but she has managed to create a new generation of younger fans too. She has even gained a few dad rock fans like me. The Eras tour has been such a commercial and critical success it is hard to figure out was she does next, but I will be there to consume the next era.

It has been a week since the show and many of the songs she performed have turned into ear worms that we still can’t shake it off.

Another fun part of the experience was heading down to US Bank Stadium the day before the show to buy merch. There was a huge line that took 90 minutes to get to the vendors. It was 90 degrees and humid, but the excitement in the air from the other fans made it a fun experience. I chatted in line with a mom and two daughters who had road tripped from Chicago. The 19 year old daughter was a Swiftie but the 17 year old daughter and mom were mere fans like me. We chatted about favorite concerts and other musicians we are fans of. It made the 90 minutes flash by. I picked up the poster (above) and the famous blue crew.

The Spotify playlist below includes the 42-song set list along with the unique two surprise songs from each show. It is updated as the tour progresses.