First, the prologue to the story: Tickets for the Reputation stadium tour went on sale in December; but the nearest shows were Denver, Minneapolis, and Kansas City. Plus good tickets were stupidly expensive. But my Fear Of Missing Out multiplied every time I listened to the album. Then, March rolled around, and Metallica announced their tour. One night, as I was sitting in the studio, engineering the 700th high school basketball game of the season, and thinking “I’ve earned a vacation,” my cousin Tyler contacted me about going to the Metallica show with the gang.
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So I was on board with that. Then, I looked at the date of the show. September 6 in Lincoln. Then I looked at the date of Taylor Swift’s show in Kansas City. September 8. I thought “I’ll already be halfway to Kansas City; maybe I could just go the rest of the way...” I got my taxes done the next week, and discovered that I’d be getting a larger refund than I expected. I’d been looking at tickets for a while out of curiosity, but now it was for real. I ended up getting a seat in the front row of the lower bowl, on the left front/side of the stage. You go big or go home when it’s your favorite artist. But it was a resale ticket (through Ticketmaster), and it was priced lower than everything around it. So I really lucked out.
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OK, so the stage is set, let’s get to the show. Speaking of lucking out, I also lucked out with the weather. It rained pretty much all week in Kansas City, but it finally stopped on Saturday. And the temperature was in the mid-60s, which was ideal for me, but probably a little chilly for a lot of people. As usual at concerts, the ladies were all dressed to impress, not only in their fancy dresses, but many of them in costumes-- recreating looks from Taylor’s music videos, for example. There’s a portion of the fan base who treat a concert like a showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. But hey, that’s OK.
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The first opener was Charli XCX. Her biggest hit is “Boom Clap,” followed by the lesser “Break the Rules.” But she also co-wrote Icona Pop’s “I Love It,” and sang the hook on Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy.” So she has songs people know. She played for about half an hour. She had a lot of energy, and was well-received by the crowd. She was followed by Camila Cabello, who is a bigger name right now, and played a bit longer set. Camila has some good songs, but didn’t seem like she was as good at engaging the crowd as Charli.
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Once Camila was done (she closed her set with “Havana,” of course), we only had maybe fifteen minutes to wait. Most of the crowd seemed to know that Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation” is the last song played over the PA before Taylor takes the stage. When the lights went down, the show started with a video, featuring clips of the media saying unfavorable things about Taylor. The phrase “Taylor Swift’s reputation” is repeated numerous times before the sound drops out and the opening synth blast of “...Ready For it?” starts the show.
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Over the next two hours, Taylor played nearly every track from Reputation, for better or worse. We got everything from the swaggering “I Did Something Bad,” to the sublime, really-needs-to-be-a-single “Getaway Car,” to the grating show closer, “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things.” But older tracks weren’t ignored-- “Style,” “Love Story,” and “You Belong With Me” were played as a medley early in the set. And she went back to 2010 to pull out a tour premiere, playing an acoustic version of “The Story of Us” for the first time since the Speak Now tour.
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In yesterday’s Metallica piece (go back and read that on my page, while you’re here), I remarked that the crowd was loud, drunk, and aggressive, and that it would be a lot different than the Taylor Swift crowd. Well, yeah. There was never a line for the men’s room at this show, I’ll tell you that. The crowd was younger, and predominantly female, with an exuberant “Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m here!” demeanor. Like the Metallica crowd, they were certainly loud. On the slower songs, I could hear the girl behind me singing as well as I could hear Taylor. Fortunately, she was able to shout on-key most of the time.
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The biggest sing-along, not just for that girl, but for the whole crowd, was “Blank Space.” There may be other songs that spent more weeks at number one, or have more streams on Spotify, or whatever other metric is used to measure success these days; but “Blank Space” is absolutely a signature song of hers now. “Shake It Off” is definitely another signature song. The closer on the 1989 tour, it’s mid-set now, but it’s still given the finale treatment: the light-up wristbands that are handed out to the crowd strobe all different colors, there are confetti canons, and Taylor is joined by Charli XCX and Camila Cabello for the second verse. It’s an absolute party.
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And really, the whole show is a party. The crowd is singing and dancing, there are fireworks, massive video screens, and other set pieces, like a throne, a multi-tiered, functioning fountain, and giant inflatable snakes. I can’t imagine what it all costs to produce, but Taylor announced during the show that we had set the all-time attendance record at Arrowhead Stadium, so I think she can afford to go all-out on tour.
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With every album, and every tour, there’s the thought “OK, how’s she going to top this? She probably can’t, right?” Then she does. Well, the singles from Reputation haven’t performed as well overall as those from 1989, and you can’t get bigger than stadiums; so in terms of sheer numbers, she’s probably plateaued. But as always, I’m excited to see what’s coming next. I’ll be here for it.
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The set list: ...Ready For It?, I Did Something Bad, Gorgeous, Style/Love Story/You Belong With Me, Look What You Made Me Do, End Game, King of My Heart, Delicate, Shake It Off, Dancing With Our Hands Tied (acoustic), The Story of Us (acoustic-- first time on this tour), Blank Space, Dress, Bad Blood/Should’ve Said No, Don’t Blame Me, Long Live/New Year’s Day (solo piano), Getaway Car, Call It What You Want, We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together/This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
bookcouple:
This sounds incredible, I’m jealous