Taylor Swift brings “The Eras” tour to London: Review

When Taylor Swift released her soft, folky albums in 2020 – folklore And Always – it was reasonable to assume that she was slowly moving beyond her maximalist pop star phase and settling into her thirties without yearning for the spotlight.

Instead, in the four years since the albums’ release, she has released six more albums, four of them as part of an ongoing re-recording series, and has become a more ubiquitous cultural force than ever before.

Swift has the most devoted and fanatical fan base in the world behind her and her mantra has recently become: more is better. And that has served her both for better and for worse. On the other hand, it has helped her 11^th Studio album, The “Tortured Poets” sectionto an unnecessary 31 songs, but it also led them to The Eras Tour, one of the biggest cultural moments of the decade so far.

Very, very few artists would be able to pull off a show of this scale and scope – ten of her eleven albums get their own section of this show at Wembley Stadium, with bespoke staging, outfits and moods – but Swift has the devotion and admiration of a legion of fans (and the money too) to delve deep into her own music and deliver a mesmerising show that never slows down below 100mph.

For folklore And AlwaysSwift sits on a moss-covered hut while the new Department for Tortured Poets In the second part, she goes full Broadway style and is woken up by her lively background dancers – dressed as mimes – before she reaches the album’s climax, “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart”.

If there were concerns that these three albums wouldn’t fit in the stadium, it is once again their fans who get them through. Even the most tender, intimate pieces – Always‘s “Marjorie” in particular – are fervently shouted back at her, with little to no interruption as a result. Although a Swift tour of theaters, the folklore And Always is still a tempting prospect, the songs can more than hold their own on this huge scale.

The Eras Tour is not only a marvel of songwriting and creativity, but also astonishing for Swift’s sheer stamina. Although she leaves the stage between each era to change costumes, she is rarely out of sight for more than a minute during the three-and-a-half hour show before reappearing, gliding across the massive stage and catwalks without her voice suffering. She is surrounded the entire time by a bevy of dancers who superbly embody their past selves: this is a brilliant performance both acting-wise and live.

While the tour traverses all eras of Swift’s career, her newer albums are given much more airtime. The set begins with a five-track journey through the 2019 album Lover (the album she couldn’t tour with due to the pandemic) and ends with 13 tracks in 2022 midnight And The “Tortured Poets” sectionAlthough they are all enthusiastically received, the tempo is occasionally a little uneven.

The resurgent hit “Cruel Summer” forms the first part of the set, but the emotional climax of the show comes a little earlier with 1989‘s hit-packed sequence of “Style,” “Blank Space,” and “Shake It Off” lasted for over an hour before she finally left the stage. While there aren’t many casual fans of Swift in attendance, there’s a slight feeling that those might be dwindling over the lengthy final two eras.