Taylor Swift’s show at AT&T Stadium is so good it will make people forget Ticketmaster flop
Taylor Swift took the stage at 7:53 p.m.
“Arlington, Texas!” she screamed to her adoring fans early in her show. “Being back in Texas feels so good! You make me feel phenomenal right now!”
She didn’t exit the stage until 11 p.m.
In between she demonstrated why she is the most popular performer on the planet.
On Friday night at AT&T Stadium, Swift’s “The Eras Tour” played the first of her three shows in what will be the biggest act ever to play DFW.
Swift is the first performer to play three straight nights at AT&T Stadium. She could have sold out another 30 straight nights.
The attendance for Show No. 1 was 69,616. Officials expect Swift to play in front of about 210,000 for the three shows combined.
The merchandise lines were not exactly short.
To demonstrate how good this show is, Swift made every single customer/fan forget the Ticketmaster fiasco that rained all over this tour’s launch last year.
This is a three-hour odyssey through 44 Swift songs that covers nearly her entire career; the show is a combination of a music video and a Broadway musical set on an enormous stage that covers a significant portion of the AT&T Stadium floor.
But to demonstrate how good this performance is ... here, allow my 14-year-old daughter, Vivian Engel, to explain it to you.
Taylor Swift can put on a show. Her dancers, her scene setup, the choreo’, everything was thought out and planned. They spared no expense, which explains why the ticket prices were so high.
The energy she and her dancers put in were outstanding. She knew that no matter what she did, every Swiftie would cheer along, and freak out.
And yet, she decided to go all out. Full energy. Her use of the viral TikTok dance/trend during her performance of “Bejeweled” was perfect.
When playing “The Last Great American Dynasty,” she had backup dancers perform the story.
Swift connects with her audience very well during multiple songs, but one that resonated with me was “Mastermind;” with her well-written lyrics “No one wanted to play with me as a little kid, so I’ve been scheming like a criminal ever since, to make them love me and make it seem effortless.”
(If you haven’t been left out at some point, then you haven’t lived.).
That’s what makes Taylor such a great artist to me. She wasn’t popular growing up; she wasn’t the star, and instead of dwelling on it, she became the music industry.
That’s how a young person sees this Taylor Swift show. Swift may not be the actual music industry, but to her fans she is.
Swift could have sat on that stage and read the Internet, and the Swifties would have called it the best show they had ever witnessed.
Swifties aside, any hardened concert fan would appreciate what Swift brings in this show. This is a peak performer pro in her prime who goes to work.
Swift does not mail in at any point. She went full Bruce Springsteen and just didn’t stop playing. There was no halftime. No timeouts for that matter.
There were just multiple outfit, and mood changes, during the evening.
She easily transitioned from some of her more melancholy material, such “Cardigan,” “My Tears Ricochet” and the 10-minute version of, “All Too Well” to her array of her pulsating, upbeat hits.
She played “The One” for the first time live in any show.
She had no problem powering through “Shake It Off,” “Bad Blood,” “You Need to Calm Down,” and just as easily played an acoustic version of “Lover.”
She plays the guitar. She sings solo. She plays the piano. She dances. She talks to, and connects with, the audience.
At one point she explained why she drifted away from writing songs that are inspired from her own life.
“There are so many stories in the world,” she said, “not all of them are about me.”
At the end, she took a bow, secure in the knowledge that the nearly 70,000 in attendance who just stood for three hours loved it all, and completely forgot about the horror show that it took to get a single ticket.
Taylor Swift Setlist, March 31, 2023, AT&T Stadium, Arlington
1. Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince
2. Cruel Summer
3. The Man
4. You Need to Calm Down
5. Lover
6. The Archer
7. Fearless
8. You Belong With Me
9. Love Story
10. ‘Tis the Damn Season
11. Willow
12. Marjorie
13. Champagne Problems
14. Tolerate It
15. Ready For It
16. Delicate
17. Don’t Blame Me
18. Look What You Made Me Do
19. Enchanted
20. 22
21. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together
22. I Knew You Were Trouble
23. All Too Well (10 minute version)
24. The One
25. Betty
26. The Last Great American Dynasty
27. August
28. Illicit Affairs
29. My Tears Ricochet
30. Cardigan
31. Style
32. Blank Space
33. Shake it Off
34. Wildest Dreams
35. Bad Blood
36. Sad Beautiful Tragic
37. Ours
38. Lavender Haze
39. Anti-Hero
40. Midnight Rain
41. Vigilante S---
42. Bejeweled
43. Mastermind
44. Karma