“If this album hadn’t been so impactful to the fans, if they hadn’t gone out and broken so many records and made sure that I knew that this album was the most important one to them and the one they liked the most, I probably would have had to pull more old hits into the set.”
That’s what Taylor Swift told Rolling Stone but that isn’t the point. In 2014. Taylor was in the exact same position as Bruce Springsteen in 1984: a life changing album that eclipsed the huge success they already had, put them at the top of the pop food chain, and the tour was going to be mammoth: all Stadiums, all big, all everybody, mammoth, the show of the year.
But I was listening to Bruce Springsteen’s recently (self) released August 4th, 1984, East Rutherford, New Jersey gig and what he did, how he answered the expectations of Born In The USA fans, was by playing a 197 minute concert, it gave him the room to perform about half of the sucker (he could have played it all with room and then some): “Born In The USA” “Glory Days”, “Bobby Jean”, “No Surrender”, “Dancing In The Dark” and still give a career spanning (even “Growing Up” off the first album) concert.
Swift is doing 120 minutes and only three songs not on 1989.
She needs to do one of two things:
1 – A career spanning Swift medley
or
2 – A much longer set.
Who wants to see these opening bands. Does Taylor think we can’t see, haven’t seen, Haim, Shawn, Foy, anyway? Ed Sheeran was a good choice on the Red tour, but how many Sheeran’s are there? There is a reason she might wanna dig into her back catalog and it is because the songs are awesome and we wanna hear em. Sure, we wanna hear 1989 as well, but not just 1989.
There is a disconnect between Swift’s “no banjos” concept of her concerts (there weren’t that many on the Red deal -what’s her point?) and drawing on all aspects of her career.
I am sure the Swift concert (I’m going both nights in July) is gonna kill it good, but I also think it could have been thethe highlight of superstardom,it could have been her Born In The USA statement, a top of everything she has ever done… but it won’t be.
