Taylor Swift Eras Tour Liverpool Anfield Stadium
Taylor Swift
Eras Tour
Liverpool Anfield Stadium
13/06/24
So who is Taylor Swift?
I think a lot of us have an opinion, of who we think she is as a person and as an artist, but how many of us have actually seen her perform? Like we all form our opinions from what we see online without looking beneath the veil sometimes, to see who some of these artists really are… We see some people saying, “Oh I don’t know what the big deal is”, or “she’s an industry plant”, but really, should we and do we sometimes, myself included write some artists off just because it’s mainstream or not our bag?
Anyway, we’ll get back to that later.
Tonight the artist who has risen to be more than likely the biggest musician on the planet right now took Liverpool’s Anfield stadium by storm, and when I say by storm, I mean it in the literal sense!
Tonight’s show is the first night of her 3 date Liverpool leg of the Eares Tour.
A few weeks ago I asked if we could come and photograph the show, quickly I received an email from her publicist saying we’d be put on the possible list and would hear back soon…I waited and last week I received the dreaded email that we photographers dread saying that unfortunately, they couldn’t because of how the set-up was, but would you like two tickets to come and review it instead? Emmm hell yeh! So for the past week, I listened to every album she had made and I really got a bit obsessed with her new album titled “The Tortured Poets Department”, why? Well from start to finish, every song felt personal to me and I could relate so much to the lyrical content of all 16 songs, (I’m quite a sensitive soul deep down and like many of us I have suffered adversity, heartbreak and trauma) and honestly listening to it daily, it started to open up doors inside me that I had kept closed for a lifetime, and yeh, that was difficult but I also found a lot of healing in this process.
We all find this in music sometimes, but a whole album? Yeah, that’s rare! I consider myself a bit of a music snob and don’t listen to some music because of this, but what I came away from this experience with was that if a song is a good song, if it resonates within you and moves you ( to tears sometimes) does it matter who wrote it or what genre it’s from?
Note to self: Stop cutting yourself off from good music you snob! LOL
So tonight I arrived at Anfield (home of Liverpool Football Club) with a friend and honestly, I did not know what to expect, I had been on a Swifty (Taylor Swift fan) Facebook group for a week and what stood out to me was here was a diverse following that all seemed to be reaching out to each other, holding each other up, regardless of gender, sex, race, age, colour or creed, and personally I’d not seen this level of camaraderie from fans of any artist, ever! So with that in mind, I kinda knew what to expect crowd-wise. Now, Anfield stadium capacity is just a little over 61,000 so I’m expecting bedlam! Emm no! The whole operation outside was one of the most laidback and calming crowds I’d ever encountered, police and security were absolutely wonderful and it felt like everyone was there for each other as much as to see Taylor.
(Taylor Swift at Anfield Stadium N1 Credit: AS Rights Management)
We collected our tickets easily and the staff were wonderful.
We entered the famed Kenny Dalgleish stand and I was surprised to find that we’d been given some of the best seats in the house, directly opposite the middle section of the stage runway, (T spends a large portion of the show there) so I was blown away at how well we’d been treated re-seating. Slowly the venue filled up but it all just felt so calm and easy. In front of us were three 20-year-old Swiftys who had been to Leon in France recently to see Taylor’s French leg of this tour, and they were so friendly, giving us Swifty bracelets and explaining how the show would go and all the fan things a 40-plus grandad like me would not know about Taylor Swift.
Tonight is the 100 date of this monumental tour which is the ongoing sixth concert tour by the American icon. Consisting of 152 shows across five continents, the tour kicked off on March 17th, 2023, in Glendale, Arizona, and currently, it is the highest-grossing tour of all time, and has had a global cultural impact. The UK Leg kicked off in Edinburgh on the 7th of June before coming to Liverpool to bless us with 3 nights and finally London at Wembley Stadum for 8 nights, ending 20th of August, not forgetting a night at Cardiff Principality Stadium on the 18th of June.
Tonight the show kicked off with another iconic band ‘Paramore’ who I have always wanted to see live, and boy what a show they put on! A headliner in their own right! Singer Hayley Williams is an absolute force of nature and had the crowd eating out of the palm of her hand! Energetic, brash (but with class), loud and completely unapologetic in her self-projection! This lady live has one of the most amazing stage presences and vocal ranges I have ever had the pleasure to witness, and honestly, I could have watched them all night!
My stand-out moment from her and the band was when she spoke to the audience about how much she appreciated us having her as a guest in the city and being able to perform here. A lot of artists say this, but from Hayley, it came across as so humble, genuine and honest and I guess that is why Paramore, aside from their amazing music still manages to captivate people and continue to have a global following, after all these years.
(Taylor Swift at Anfield Stadium N1 Credit: AS Rights Management)
So on to the main event, it wasn’t long till the big digital clock started to count down in minutes to when Taylor would come on stage and just like a rocket taking off from NASA, boom the stage opened to a mesmerising display of pink stage art that moves down the runway eventually moving to show Taylor, as if she had appeared out of thin air! The set list tonight is like a Taylor Swift musical history consisting of songs from albums LOVER, FEARLESS, RED, SPEAK NOW, REPUTATION, FOLKLORE, EVERMORE, 1989, THE TORCTURED POETS DEPARTMENT, MIDNIGHT and several surprise songs! Taylor Swift has released 11 original studio albums, 4 re-recorded albums, 5 extended plays (EPs), and 4 live albums and that is absolutely astonishing achievement from this musical genius!
The show is extremely visual and unfolds like a film as each album is visited, visually it is breathtaking and sometimes it’s hard to get your head around how something like that is achieved, it’s not just music, it is an entire Broadway show, a movie, a sitcom, a comedy, a drama, a love story, a thriller and more importantly it is a human being completely exposing themselves, becoming the most vulnerable a human can become and just saying to you that “this is me, these are my hopes, my dreams, my fears, my flaws and im letting you know that when I’m in the dark, alone late at night that these are the things that terrify me about myself… Will you still love me and want to know me after I tell you all of this about me?” That is why I think Taylor Swift has such a reach and connection with her fans because I don’t think any other artist has ever been so brutally honest about themselves. She connects because she sings about the things that we all think about but are scared of letting others know about ourselves.
(Taylor Swift at Anfield Stadium N1 Credit: AS Rights Management)
I kinda see her as a lighthouse shining with the same type of message as author, teacher, politician and activist Marianne Williamson once said, and that is “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest what is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Fundamentally that is what I take from Taylor Swift.
The show from start to finish was something so special, the stage sets, the dancers, wow! The wristbands that lit up the stadium in sequences, the choreography and her sheer joy in being here, are what made tonight special. In her own way, Taylor Swift is changing the world, smashing patriarchy but also being an ally to men who want to be and do better and I think the world needs someone like her right now, bringing us all together with love and acceptance.
Special thanks to Tree Paine and Dana Lobb for the love, care and opportunity you gave me tonight, and a big thank you to all involved in the show and the amazing staff at Anfield football Stadium, you made us all feel so safe.
By Billy Vitch
The set list from tonight can be found here
