But the show might make you think of that song anyway, because if it proves nothing else - and it proves plenty else - it’s that Swift… can… sing. Even in a set that now encompasses 45 songs, certain greatest-hits sacrifices must be made. Sadly, Taylor Swift doesn’t sing “Mean” on her Eras Tour. And then, even more solicitously: “Did anyone here tonight put a lot of thought and preparation into one of these two things: lyric memorization, and your cute outfit?” As is customary on the tour, only one audience member is allowed near the actual proceedings, typically a tyke brought onto the B-stage for the gifting of a hat during “22.” On Thursday, it was Bianka Bryant, the 6-year-old daughter of Kobe and Vanessa, getting the bestowing. Swift does her very capable best of making sure the crowd feels part of the show, and not just because of what’s been handed to them: “Is there anyone here tonight who put in an extensive amount of effort to be with us at the Eras Tour?” she asked. It has a particularly startling effect on the senses at SoFi Stadium, which, built deep into the ground, has such an extreme rake in its medium and upper seating areas that it’s almost like being surrounded by canyon walls, now set aglow by benign alien forces. It would probably not be a spoiler for the remainder of the run to reveal that red gets some special consideration, but clearly a lot of thought as well as expense and effort went into the color-coding for each of the nearly 45 numbers that bring the audience’s wrists into the picture, above and beyond what will seem like glorified glow sticks the next time you see an artist passing these trinkets out. When Swift launched into her abbreviated version of “You Need to Calm Down,” perhaps needless to predict, the SoFi audience became a huge, blinking rainbow flag in surround-vision. might have been something as seemingly basic as the glowing wristbands left on all 70,000 seats or so prior to gates opening, making for a light show far beyond anything seen at the beginning of the tour. Just a week or so ago, “Tis the Damn Season” was dropped from the “Evermore” portion of the set to make room for “No Body, No Crime,” thanks to that song’s featured artist, Haim, coming on for the last stretch of the tour. The most overtly autobiographical song about a love affair now known to be broken up, “Invisible String,” was cut months ago, in favor of another great “Folklore” song with nearly the exact opposite viewpoint, “The 1.” “Long Live” was added to the set upon the release of the “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” re-record. No matter - Angelenos do like to believe we’re special, and were happy to treat it as a closer to what began in Phoenix four and a half months ago, even if, in the overall picture, she’s only just begun.Īny of the fans who’ve already caught the tour - which, if you count people watching shaky, illicit livestreams, means almost all of them - will know not much has changed about the set since the March opening in Arizona. run for the tour, as she announced earlier in the day that she is adding North American dates for fall 2024, albeit more in what looks like a regional mopping-up exercise than a full-scale return after the Latin American, Asian and European globetrotting to come in the next year. leg of the Eras Tour, and we really wanted to spend it somewhere special.” Flattery will get her everywhere, but there’s an asterisk she could have put on that statement and didn’t, which is that the SoFi run marks the end of just one U.S. “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Swift told the crowd early in Thursday’s show, “but this is the last city on the U.S. It feels generous and sweet, and it absolutely flexes like a goddam acrobat. It’s massively overscaled, oddly intimate and even, at its heart, extraordinarily musical in a way we don’t expect, much less demand, out of pop extravaganzas. the Eras Tour represents the apotheosis of what a pop superstar tour can be. area’s SoFi Stadium - the first of a six-night stand in Inglewood, Calif. As re-witnessed in Thursday night’s performance at the L.A. Swift is paying her good fortune forward with an exhaustive, exhilarating show that is making millions of international fans justifiably joyful.
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