RENT FREE: Miss Americana & One Unforgettable Night
Two years ago, Taylor Swift wowed me (and the world) in an un-repeatable way.
You know those things that just stick in your head whether you want them to or not? I’ve got a million of them when it comes to the music world from my time observing it. This column is dedicated to those moments that live on in my head, long after their time in the sun has passed. Welcome to Rent Free.
The loudest thing I think I’ll ever hear was the crowd pop when Taylor Swift appeared on stage on Sunday, April 2nd, 2023 at AT&T Stadium for the third night of her Eras Tour shows in Arlington, Texas. Sure, it was loud in there before, but the rising volume powered by a countdown clock hit an unreal peak when the most ubiquitous superstar of our time finally appeared. The combined force of 70,000+ women (and a few guys like myself) unleashing every decibel in their system was met in kind with T Swizzle unleashing a 3-hour performance the likes of which were previously unthought of when it came to megatours. Watching her that Sunday evening, you'd have no idea it was her third straight day of the marathon performance, a jaunt through every nook and cranny of her artistic history up to that point. The Eras Tour would go on for another year and a half after that Arlington show, through multiple countries and iterations, but even two years after seeing it, I still find myself going back to that three hour period where nothing mattered except one star and one stage.
Unless you were living under a rock, it was hard to ignore just how much the Eras Tour had infiltrated pop culture in early 2023. The Ticketmaster fiasco when the tour initially went on sale cast some serious doubts, and it was hard to get in to any of these shows during its duration. I was lucky enough to have a friend (thanks Jen!!!) who secured tickets to not only the Arlington show, but the opening night of the tour in Phoenix too, because as we'd come to realize, it was an event one truly couldn't get enough of. All fears about the tour were washed away the second that Phoenix show kicked off on March 17th, and with DFW being the third stop on the tour, the hype around the Metroplex was palpable.
Swifties were lined up days in advance to just get to the merch booth, Arlington opened up a museum exhibit about Swift's history, and the DJ at the Rangers/Phillies game I went to the Saturday before played plenty of Taylor Swift hits during pregame warmups (this is where I fell in love with “Starlight” from Red). There were girls already dressed up for the tour at that game too, ready to make the short walk from Globe Life Field to AT&T Stadium for the main event (only after the Rangers kicked the Phillies in the ass). I too thought I was going to make that walk for the Saturday show after that game, but I can't read plans sent to me, as we had tickets for Sunday’s show... My incompetence aside, we did skirt the problem of parking by using a Rangers lot I had a free pass for. That alone probably saved us at least $60 from what we saw walking from the ballpark to the venue. Thanks Audacy!
Getting into the building was a fairly easy process despite how many people were trying to do the same. We got there maybe an hour before the openers started and were in our seats just fine, with our light up wristbands and food acquired. Our view was directly to the front of the stage from the 100 level, a fantastic view of not only the show to come, but the staggeringly long line for Eras Tour merch. It would've taken the length of Taylor's performance to wait through that line! Speaking of lines, the most underrated part of being a man at this show was the wait for the bathroom was nonexistent. It was me, boyfriends and dads who were there either against their will or in full on support. We all had a great time when it was all said and done.
The two openers, Gracie Abrams and beabadoobee, had the enviable/unenviable task of playing before, you know, Taylor Swift. Both did a fine job, even if it did seem like no one was really listening to them as people milled about the floor. Abrams had a huge voice that really filled out the stadium on songs like “Where do we go now?”. That big voice is something I sadly haven’t heard from her on her studio recordings. I was a bigger beabadoobee guy myself, enjoying her modern approach to 90’s alt rock. But soon they were shuffled off the stage, the countdown was completed, and the pop of all pops went off as Taylor appeared midstage. Seeing her appear through shifting blocks in the long catwalk of a stage was the first sign to me that this was going to be so much more than a normal concert.
Leading off the show with songs from Lover was a smart choice seeing as how that album never got a tour all to itself thanks to COVID-19. I wouldn’t have gone with “Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince” as the opener, but having adopted Miss Americana as her own sobriquet, she turned it into an electric beginning. The real hits came next, with “Cruel Summer”, “The Man” (with an awesome multi-level setup with dancers galore near the big video screen) and “You Need To Calm Down” lighting up the entire arena with an energy the show somehow maintained for another three hours. The latter track was one I despised when it originally came out, but hearing it sung by the entire crowd as rainbow lights emanated from the stadium LEDs and our wristbands made me appreciate its overly-commercial anti-hate message just a tad more. The most impressive thing about the first Era? For as loud as it was, there was no voice louder than Taylor Swift’s. If that sounds obvious, it was still impressive to me how during a quieter song like “Lover”, all those voices had no chance of drowning Swift out. It was an auspicious start that would only get better.
A quick costume change led to the Fearless Era, and that’s where the experience really struck me. Hearing “You Belong with Me” and “Love Story” back to back (screaming both at the top of my lungs, mind you) made me take a step back and realize that most artists don’t have a single song close to as titanic as those two are. And we were only 30 minutes into the show! The choreography involved during “You Belong with Me” between Swift, the dancers and the musicians on stage was pinpoint, with each party rising up and down across blocks on the stage as she performed one of her biggest hits like it was nothing. The show then transitioned into the evermore Era, an album that admittedly has never done much for me. It was a nice time to rest my legs (we’d of course been standing all show long up to that point) as “Willow”, “Champagne Problems” and “Tolerate It” came and went. The transitions between Eras were very quick by the way, never taking long for Taylor to whisk herself into a new outfit and get the stage ready to go for whatever each song called for.
Remember how I appreciated a song like “You Need To Calm Down” more hearing it live? That feeling was tenfold for the Reputation Era songs. I had never vibed with the studio recordings, but the crushing synths of a song like “…Ready For It?” and the swaggering chorus of “Don’t Blame Me” popped so much more when they were right in front of me. The imagery on the stage for this Era was my favorite of the entire show, starting with a snake slithering around the LED stage and screen really selling the cringe-but-classic look at the vitriol Taylor received leading up to that album’s release in 2017. Is it my new favorite of hers now? Not at all, but I can appreciate everyone who does have it as their #1 Taylor Swift album. A quick jaunt (and I mean quick) through Speak Now and all of a sudden, we’d heard 19 songs from half of her albums, but we weren’t even halfway done yet.
Now we were getting to the part of the show I was most excited for. Red is my favorite Taylor Swift album, always has been and always will be. It’s her time in the cocoon during her metamorphosis between country and pop, and the only shame of this part of the set was she didn’t have more time to reach further down the tracklist. A stagehand came out and teased us with snippets of “State of Grace” and “Red”, songs I’d love to hear live some day. But there was no way she could avoid the songs she did perform, and I had no problem belting out “22”, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”, and “I Knew You Were Trouble” with 70,000 of my closest friends. Maybe the crown jewel of the whole concert was hearing the fully realized, 10 minute edition of “All Too Well” live, with Swift infusing it with even more emotion and charisma than on the studio version.
Much like with the two songs from Fearless, this was another showcase of the monumental star that Taylor Swift is. Four generational songs in a row done so effortlessly, elevated by an eye for stage production second to none. If you couldn’t tell by now, the entire Eras Tour show was like a roving Broadway show, more than just a singer performing her greatest hits. During separate Eras, Taylor would take time to thank the crowd, thank her team, tell little stories about each song and more. She’s always been good at drawing us into her world through her music, but she really felt like she was everyone’s best friend for this time, inviting you into her most intimate and most maximalist visions, all on the same time.
folklore was up next, and as evermore’s better half, the indie folk vibes translated so much stronger to their live renditions. By this point Taylor had added “the 1”, a personal favorite of mine, to the song’s setlist, and as one of her most poignant and heartbreaking romantic daydreams, it was the perfect tone setter for that set as it was an opener for the album. Her phenomenal storytelling on “betty” and “the last great american dynasty” were accented with visuals of hazy forests and faraway shores around the makeshift house set up at the center of the LED screen. Swift’s acoustic guitar led this section along, and her quietest album made for one of the show’s most engaging sets.
But if you want to talk about engaging, how about columns of fire spewing throughout AT&T Stadium that I can still feel to this day? Those came during the 1989 songs, specifically “Bad Blood” which you can see below. Her full transformation into pop superstar was complete with 1989, and that record holds a special place to me with it coming out when I was in college. The hits like “Shake It Off” were expectedly fun live, but its most memorable moment outside of those pillars of flame was the lovey dovey “Wildest Dreams”. If I’m ranking sets against one another, I’d be hard pressed to put anything above the five songs from 1989 she chose. And because this act was so fun, it probably made the two surprise songs she chose for her acoustic set a little more underwhelming. “Jump Then Fall” from Fearless and “The Lucky One” from 1989 are deep cuts that don’t cut me that deep, but beggars can’t be choosers when you’re in the midst of a marathon like this.
We weren’t too far off from actual midnight when the final Era, that of Midnights, took center stage. Midnights holds a special place in my heart, dropping at a particular time in my life that helped me get through some personal turmoil. Everyone has that one Taylor Swift album, and for mine to be the show’s closing segment made it even more special to me. Supersized hits like “Anti-Hero” and “Bejeweled” were truly electric live, but the tender playfulness of a song like “Mastermind” was even more impressively translated from studio to the stage. “Karma” marked the grandest finale possible, with Taylor somehow still having the energy for one more choreographed number as the best song from the album faded the show out. The only thing that came close to the thunderous shrieks of Taylor’s entrance was the applause as she and her crew took their final bows. There was no visible sign of exhaustion on anyone’s face, although I imagine everyone collapsed the second they weren’t visible to us Swifties.
You know who was exhausted? Me, in the best way possible. The Eras Tour is as exhilarated as I’ve ever been seeing any piece of media, be it musical, film, or what have you. Jen and I just kind of stood there awestruck for a little bit, with Jen being just as blown away as she was two weeks before seeing the opening show. We immediately asked each other “You want to see what tickets look like to see this again in Houston in two weeks?”. It would’ve cost $500 to sit behind the stage at NRG Stadium, and I don’t think either of us instantly ruled it out. After getting a requisite picture to prove we were there, we made our way back to the Rangers parking lot, through Texas Live and through all the instant memories we had just made seeing the show. I don’t think I fell asleep until well after midnight (fitting), staying away long enough to convince myself to order the merch I refused to wait in line for at the concert. I’m wearing that same Eras Tour shirt on the day this article was published.
Two years later, pretty much any time I hear a Taylor Swift song from any album, I’m transported back to that liminal three hour period back in 2023. It’s been interesting in the years since talking to other people about the shows they went to, where they sat, which particular songs hit different, and more. I know people who went to all three Arlington shows. I know people who went overseas for the second leg of the tour since it was cheaper to fly to Europe and get a ticket there than it was in the United States (my condolences to them for having to hear songs from The Tortured Poets Department live). I know people who ask me to tell them what it was like since they weren’t able to go. The Eras Tour’s cultural impact reaches so far beyond just fans that as soon as that show ended, I wanted to see it again, and thought anyone with a pulse (or at least appreciation for live music) should check it out some day. I haven’t seen the Eras Tour concert film yet (though I do have a popcorn bucket for it), but knowing the audacity it took to formulate and pull such a tour off, I have no doubt the love, care and excitement of the live shows is there in the film. Even when Taylor does tour again, and even if I get to see her once again take the stage, the memories of The Eras Tour will be replaying in my head the entire time. I won’t mind that one bit.
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