Taylor Swift caps historic AT&T Stadium run with Springsteen-esque stamina
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Taylor Swift capped a record-breaking, three-night run at AT&T Stadium in Arlington Sunday with another jaw-dropping heroic performance.
But to be fair, most of the 70,000 in attendance were too busy singing along to every word for their jaws to drop.
And if they weren’t singing, they were shrieking with delight from the moment she took the stage with show opener “Miss Americana and The Heartbreak Prince” to the closer “Karma,” more than three hours later.
Arlington is the third stop on her “The Eras” stadium tour, which concludes with five nights at Sofi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., in early August.
Swift played in front of 210,607 fans over three consecutive nights, a record total for the 14-year-old home of the Dallas Cowboys.
She next plays three nights at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla., April 13-15, before returning to Texas for three nights at Houston’s NRG Stadium April 21-23.
By the time the tour ends, the 33-year-old will likely set all-time proceed records held by other industry giants such as Garth Brooks, U2, The Rolling Stones, Beyonce, and Bruce Springsteen.
Springsteen, who played a career-spanning show at American Airlines Center in February, is an appropriate comparison for Swift’s marathon, three-hour, 10-minute performance.
Over 44 songs, neatly sectioned and representing material from nine of her 10 albums (her 2006 debut was the only one not represented), Swift chronicled the “eras” of her 17-year career backed by her band of four guitarists, drummer, keyboard/pianist and four backup singers.
The expansive, state-of-the-art stage is an industry-changing revelation. It includes a massive curved video wall behind the main stage at one end of the stadium, with a catwalk spanning nearly the entire floor, with a large B-stage in the middle and a T-shaped smaller stage on the opposite end of the floor. All the staging on the floor also doubled as digital display walls, which helped create a sensory-overload of whatever emotion or mood each song or “era” inspired.
The stage also included trap doors and openings for Swift to suddenly disappear briefly for one of her 10 theme-enhanced wardrobe changes. The most dazzling of these moments came when she dove into an imaginary swimming pool displayed on the stage floor. After she disappeared, a digital image of her swimming towards the other end of the stage was projected on the surface. It was mind-bending and a piece of Las Vegas magic.
Not only did the stage pulsate with images and open up at times, it lifted Swift and her bandmates 10-feet up on hydraulic blocks throughout the evening, creating a dizzying marriage of dance choreography, stagecraft, and technology heretofor unseen in a pop music concert tour.
Each “era” of songs received its own milieu of lighting, digital imagery, and elaborate stage props, set design and costumed dancers. The audience was in on the spectacle, too. Upon entering, each fan was given a PixMob LED bracelet that lit up in different choreographed colors to match the mood of each moment of the show.
Swift made sure the price of your ticket was reflected in the scope and quality of the production.
And then she topped it off by performing for more than three hours, which had more than a few younger fans in their Swift-inspired sequined dresses struggling to stay awake hours after bedtime. Her show has appropriately been compared to a Broadway production by reviewers and reporters from stops in Glendale, Ariz., and Las Vegas. But comparing it to a Broadway show actually doesn’t quite cover it. It’s Broadway on steroids, with pyrotechnics, image projection, fireworks, laser lights, and confetti all making appearances.
One issue remains troublesome, however, for concerts at AT&T Stadium. The sound, especially for fans on the floor, is still often an echoey mess that muddies vocals and often compresses the music into a bass-heavy wash. That’s not on Swift or her band. That’s on Jerry Jones and is as big of a flaw of an otherwise glorious stadium as a fall afternoon sun blinding a Cowboys’ receiver.
One of the many anticipated moments of the evening is Swift’s deviation from the setlist when she performs two random songs from her career.
“When I was rerecording [the album] Fearless I fell in love with this song,” Swift said before a solo acoustic guitar version of “Jump Then Fall” on the far end of the floor opposite the main stage. A lovely, piano-only version of “The Lucky One” followed.
All six surprise songs performed in Arlington, including “Sad Beautiful Tragic, “Ours,” “Death By a Thousand Cuts,” and “Clean” were tour debuts.
“Best believe I’m still bejeweled, when I walk in the room, I can still make the whole place shimmer,” Swift sang in “Bejeweled” near the end of the night.Absolutely, and it’s not just because of the sparkling, crystaled, sequined, and micro-beaded costumes she kept changing into. Her eyes also twinkled, her cherry-red lips puckered, and her blonde hair still radiates heat. She’s in her prime in every imaginable way.
The bulk of the crowd — about 60% women and girls — were still in hysterics as the show closed with a seven-song set from Midnights, released in October, and her best-selling album since 2017’s Reputation. Midnights is the fourth album Swift has released since she last toured in 2018. That was the last time she was in town, when she closed her Reputation tour with two shows at AT&T Stadium, the second of which was recorded for a Netflix concert film.
As far as we know, Swift wasn’t filming this time around, but no one who saw her in Arlington over the weekend is likely to ever forget it.
Taylor Swift setlist, Arlington, Texas, Night 3, April 2, 2023
Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince
Cruel Summer
The Man
You Need to Calm Down
Lover
The Archer
Fearless
You Belong With Me
Love Story
‘Tis the Damn Season
Willow
Marjorie
Champagne problems
Tolerate It
...Ready for It?
Delicate
Don’t Blame Me
Look What You Made Me Do
Enchanted
22
We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together
I Knew You Were Trouble
All Too Well (10-Minute Version)
The 1
Betty
The Last Great American Dynasty
August
Illicit Affairs
My Tears Ricochet
Cardigan
Style
Blank Space
Shake It Off
Wildest Dreams
Bad Blood
Jump Then Fall
The Lucky One
Lavender Haze
Anti‐Hero
Midnight Rain
Vigilante S***
Bejeweled
Mastermind
Karma
