Heading into 2023, Taylor Swift was a strong contender for the title of World's Most Famous Musician — but now she's in the lead by a mile, and it's all thanks to her Eras Tour. It's a masterwork of self-mythologizing, combining the greatest-hits pandering of a Vegas residency with the youth appeal of an artist at the top of her game. She's unique in the way she manages to be a legacy act and dominate the charts at the same time — an impressive piece of fence-sitting reinforced by the fact that her big hit these days is "Cruel Summer," a song that came out four years and several albums ago.
Releasing this film while her tour is still on-going — rather than after the tour is over, like most artists do with concert movies — is not only a great way to fill cinemas while excitement is high, but it's also an act of kindness to the many people who didn't score tickets to the IRL show and can't spend thousands of dollars on the resale market. My Saturday afternoon screening was full of tweens breathlessly exclaiming "oh my god" when the title credits appeared and young children dancing at the front of the cinema with light-up shoes. It was a wholesome environment in which to enjoy the biggest pop spectacle around at a price cheap enough to bring along my nine-year-old Swiftie niece and her whole family.
The Eras Tour begins curiously abruptly, as a clock ticks down to midnight, some dancers walk out with billowing sheets, and Swift emerges for an abridged and anticlimactic version of "Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince." But soon she's onto "Cruel Summer" and we're off to the races with the Lover era, an album she was never able to tour properly thanks to the pandemic.
The whole fun of the Eras Tour concept is seeing the visual aesthetic Swift applies to each stage of her career, as well as discovering which of her songs make the cut (which is especially exciting for anyone with the self-control to stay off setlist.fm). Lover, with its unicorn-barf aesthetic, is a perfect start, since the eclecticism of the material is matched by staging that changes with each song; synthpop banger "The Man" is especially memorable, with backup dancers wearing suits at a faux office and Swift playfully interpreting "girlboss feminism" in the most literal way possible.
Perhaps inevitably, dividing her show up by album creates some unevenness in the material. I've always felt a little too old for Fearless's love songs about princes and princesses, but by impeccably playing three bangers ("Fearless," "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me"), she brings out the best of her Nashville era.
Lockdown LPs folklore and evermore, on the other hand, are fantastic albums that don't translate quite so smoothly to the stage; the pagan witchiness of "willow" adds a corny theatricality that wasn't present on the understated record, while the moss-covered cottage of folklore attempts to zhuzh up an era that was actually defined by low-key indie folk cosplay. (Swift has already released the perfect performance of folklore, the subtle and superior concert film Long Pond Sessions.) The straightforward earnestness of "marjorie" is a far better representation of folkmore.
But what stands out the most about The Eras Tour is how clearly Red and 1989 outshine all other eras. The many kids in my screening went absolutely feral the second Swift launched into "22," and even the performers on stage seemed to level up: during this chapter, the rigidly controlled performance takes on an intensity missing from the rest of the set, as if the dancers are actually having fun and cutting loose instead of simply pasting frozen smiles onto their faces. Bubblegum bangers "Shake It Off" and "Blank Space" are tailor-made (Taylor-made, if you prefer) for stadiums, with the latter containing one of the coolest illusions of the show, as Swift and her dancers brandish glowing golf clubs and beat the shit out of a car on a video screen.
Swift and her band absolutely nail the performances, sticking closely to the studio versions and uniformly sounding impeccable; the rare moments where she mashes up songs, like tacking part of "illicit affairs" onto the end of "august," reframe the material effectively. And the staging is expectedly grand, with most of the action taking place on a walkway that also acts as a video screen and a rising platform.
If only it were possible to fully appreciate the visual spectacle: director Sam Wrench ruthlessly over-edits The Eras Tour, with few shots lasting more that a couple of seconds. Cameras swing dizzyingly around the stage or swoop above it, and the rare moments when Wrench actually lingers on a shot come as a sweet relief.
Wrench has a tendency to film Swift from close up — but, of course, the most impressive moments are the too-rare long shots, when it's possible to experience the full scale of the show. If Taylor Swift is standing on top of a tall riser, it's far more exciting to see her from the bottom, rather than the tight zooms of her face we get instead. It all feels a bit like Michael Bay directing an action sequence, constantly editing rather than sitting back and letting the choreography speak for itself.
The over-editing has a numbing effect that fully sets in by the time Swift gets the Midnights era to close out this near-three-hour epic. Even though the rest of the eras are non-chronological, it was always inevitable that she use her newest album as the final chapter of the career-spanning journey.
The snag is that Midnights is her worst album in years, maybe ever; the dentist's office dance beats of "Lavender Haze," reputation-lite raunch of "Vigilante Shit" and over-written mixed metaphors of "Mastermind" come at the end of a very long movie that, by this point, I was ready to be over. For such a grand spectacle with so many incredible hits, "Karma" is a limp closer that simply isn't the classic Swift seems so intent on forcing it to be.
The Eras Tour sputters across the finish line, but it's nevertheless a lavish act of a pop pomp, serving as the definitive document of the biggest musician of the century so far operating at the peak of her cultural currency. I was thrilled for the chance to see it on the big screen — it was good enough that I was very happy to pay under $20, but not quite good enough that I regret missing the chance to pay hundreds to see it in-person.
Releasing this film while her tour is still on-going — rather than after the tour is over, like most artists do with concert movies — is not only a great way to fill cinemas while excitement is high, but it's also an act of kindness to the many people who didn't score tickets to the IRL show and can't spend thousands of dollars on the resale market. My Saturday afternoon screening was full of tweens breathlessly exclaiming "oh my god" when the title credits appeared and young children dancing at the front of the cinema with light-up shoes. It was a wholesome environment in which to enjoy the biggest pop spectacle around at a price cheap enough to bring along my nine-year-old Swiftie niece and her whole family.
The Eras Tour begins curiously abruptly, as a clock ticks down to midnight, some dancers walk out with billowing sheets, and Swift emerges for an abridged and anticlimactic version of "Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince." But soon she's onto "Cruel Summer" and we're off to the races with the Lover era, an album she was never able to tour properly thanks to the pandemic.
The whole fun of the Eras Tour concept is seeing the visual aesthetic Swift applies to each stage of her career, as well as discovering which of her songs make the cut (which is especially exciting for anyone with the self-control to stay off setlist.fm). Lover, with its unicorn-barf aesthetic, is a perfect start, since the eclecticism of the material is matched by staging that changes with each song; synthpop banger "The Man" is especially memorable, with backup dancers wearing suits at a faux office and Swift playfully interpreting "girlboss feminism" in the most literal way possible.
Perhaps inevitably, dividing her show up by album creates some unevenness in the material. I've always felt a little too old for Fearless's love songs about princes and princesses, but by impeccably playing three bangers ("Fearless," "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me"), she brings out the best of her Nashville era.
Lockdown LPs folklore and evermore, on the other hand, are fantastic albums that don't translate quite so smoothly to the stage; the pagan witchiness of "willow" adds a corny theatricality that wasn't present on the understated record, while the moss-covered cottage of folklore attempts to zhuzh up an era that was actually defined by low-key indie folk cosplay. (Swift has already released the perfect performance of folklore, the subtle and superior concert film Long Pond Sessions.) The straightforward earnestness of "marjorie" is a far better representation of folkmore.
But what stands out the most about The Eras Tour is how clearly Red and 1989 outshine all other eras. The many kids in my screening went absolutely feral the second Swift launched into "22," and even the performers on stage seemed to level up: during this chapter, the rigidly controlled performance takes on an intensity missing from the rest of the set, as if the dancers are actually having fun and cutting loose instead of simply pasting frozen smiles onto their faces. Bubblegum bangers "Shake It Off" and "Blank Space" are tailor-made (Taylor-made, if you prefer) for stadiums, with the latter containing one of the coolest illusions of the show, as Swift and her dancers brandish glowing golf clubs and beat the shit out of a car on a video screen.
Swift and her band absolutely nail the performances, sticking closely to the studio versions and uniformly sounding impeccable; the rare moments where she mashes up songs, like tacking part of "illicit affairs" onto the end of "august," reframe the material effectively. And the staging is expectedly grand, with most of the action taking place on a walkway that also acts as a video screen and a rising platform.
If only it were possible to fully appreciate the visual spectacle: director Sam Wrench ruthlessly over-edits The Eras Tour, with few shots lasting more that a couple of seconds. Cameras swing dizzyingly around the stage or swoop above it, and the rare moments when Wrench actually lingers on a shot come as a sweet relief.
Wrench has a tendency to film Swift from close up — but, of course, the most impressive moments are the too-rare long shots, when it's possible to experience the full scale of the show. If Taylor Swift is standing on top of a tall riser, it's far more exciting to see her from the bottom, rather than the tight zooms of her face we get instead. It all feels a bit like Michael Bay directing an action sequence, constantly editing rather than sitting back and letting the choreography speak for itself.
The over-editing has a numbing effect that fully sets in by the time Swift gets the Midnights era to close out this near-three-hour epic. Even though the rest of the eras are non-chronological, it was always inevitable that she use her newest album as the final chapter of the career-spanning journey.
The snag is that Midnights is her worst album in years, maybe ever; the dentist's office dance beats of "Lavender Haze," reputation-lite raunch of "Vigilante Shit" and over-written mixed metaphors of "Mastermind" come at the end of a very long movie that, by this point, I was ready to be over. For such a grand spectacle with so many incredible hits, "Karma" is a limp closer that simply isn't the classic Swift seems so intent on forcing it to be.
The Eras Tour sputters across the finish line, but it's nevertheless a lavish act of a pop pomp, serving as the definitive document of the biggest musician of the century so far operating at the peak of her cultural currency. I was thrilled for the chance to see it on the big screen — it was good enough that I was very happy to pay under $20, but not quite good enough that I regret missing the chance to pay hundreds to see it in-person.
