Item: Eras Tour
Author: Fiona Shepherd

Taylor Swift played to a sold out audience at Murrayfield.

Taylor Swift’s Eras tour is a behemoth of an operation. Already the highest grossing tour of all time with six months still to go, its knock-on commercial impact generates roughly the GDP of a small country for every city it lands in – in Edinburgh, the whopping 73,000 fans attending on each of the three nights (wearing complementary illuminated TS wristbands) are the very excitable tip of this cultural iceberg.

The show itself is a beast, comprising 45 songs arranged into ten chapters, with sixteen costume changes across a whopping three-and-a-quarter hours – even Bruce Springsteen might baulk (especially at the costume changes) but Swift is a preternaturally industrious artist who was produced a torrent of tunes since she last toured pre-pandemic.

Taylor Swift performs on stage during her Eras Tour at the Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh.

Hence, the Eras concept, grouping together a set of songs from each of her albums, though her gauche self-titled debut does not get a look-in, and tough luck for fans of third album, Speak Now, dispensed with here in all of five fragrant minutes. To paraphrase her own lyrics, it appears that the old Taylor can’t come to the stage right now.

Of course, we are currently in a new Swift era, that of her eleventh album, The Tortured Poets Department, which broke the internet earlier this year. Swift’s European shows have been remixed to accommodate this fresh chapter with seven new numbers swapped into the set, including a Busby Berkeley-inspired routine for I Can Do It With a Broken Heart and powerhouse melodrama Who's Afraid of Little Old Me? But these were more than thirty songs down the line.

First, the pastel-pretty floaty Lover era, with Cruel Summer the big singalong. Within minutes of feeling the Murrayfield power, however, Swift had swapped fairytale princess for the executive chic of The Man and the call-to-arms (waving) of You Need to Calm Down.

Next, she harked back to her cutesy country roots, with fringes flying on Fearless and the perky high school crush singalongs of You Belong With Me and Love Story.

She has travelled a long way musically since then and the following Red era showcased her transition to pop. Cue spirited dance routines, playful attitude and bubble-gum chants 22 and We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together - for the avoidance of doubt, one of the dancers interjected “nae chance”.

In contrast, the ten-minute heartbreak ballad All Too Well, a soft song with cutting lyrics, has taken on a life of its own among Swifties.

Swift doesn't quite convince as the venomous Taylor of the Reputation era, even if this chapter of the show featured some of her darkest dance bangers and ended with one of the most impressive set-pieces, encasing dancers and backing singers in all their diversity in perspex boxes.

Swift's lockdown albums Folklore and Evermore were paired and delivered from a verdant woodland cabin set with moss-covered grand piano. Overcome by this midsummer night's dream, a couple got engaged down in the crowd with Swift's beaming blessing.

Her superstar status was sealed around the release of the 1989 album so this chapter couldn't fail to land with the catwalk parade of Style, velodrome antics of Blank Space and cheerleader ebullience of Shake It Off and Bad Blood all in the bank.

By the time she was busting out rapturously received acoustic renditions of Would've Could've Should've/I Know Places and Tis the Damn Season/Daylight in the surprise songs slot, Swift was contending with cramps from the cold but the final Era was nigh, celebrating the Midnights album, inspired by 13 sleepless nights in her life.

By this point, it was not unreasonable to think that Swift intended to keep us up all night on shimmering manoeuvres. Instead she left 73,000 fans baying for more.

Taylor Swift Eras Tour Review: "She left 73,000 fans baying for more"

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