Taylor Swift Opens Tour In Tokyo : Here Is The Setlist 2015 Style

“For this album I was a 25-year-old girl, single, writing about love from the outside looking in. I learned a lot about love from…watching movies! Eighties teen movies like Sixteen Candles.” That’s Taylor Swift discussing 1989, and while people of good faith might feel she is full of it, only the gorgeous and emotionally supple “You Are In Love” is story telling proper, you get what Taylor means, and what she means is she isn’t (wasn’t?) in love at the time.

Taylor began her new tour Tuesday night (Japan time!) at the Tokyo Dome. The production looks kinda typical Tay, in a direct lineage from Speak Now, to Red to 1989. For one thing, like those two tours, she has slowly cut out most oldies. There is nothing earlier than Fearless, and , in fact, only three of the eighteen songs are not on 1989 Deluxe, and the only song missing from Deluxe is “Wonderland”. The entire 13 song 1989 is represented.

I am happy to hear New York represented upfront, “New Romantics” is a little odd for the second song, and “Blank Space maybe a touch early? Since Taylor isn’t given to encores, I guess there was no reason to leave it for a late sock in the jaw. In Rob Schwartz’s Billboard review (here), he doesn’t mention any of the set pieces we are used to, no wedding ala “Speak Now”, though he does mention that “Love Story” didn’t get a bigger than anything else reception, as much to do with the mammoth success of the newbie no doubt. All five songs from Jingle Ball 2014 are represented… What else? On the Red tour, Taylor was letting the audience choose a song. That ain’t happening any more.

So now we know what we already know: this July 10th and 11th, we are getting 1989. I am going to both dates and I can’t wait.

Welcome to New York
New Romantics
Blank Space
I Knew You Were Trouble
(Remix Intro)
I Wish You Would
How You Get the Girl
I Know Places
All You Had to Do Was Stay
You Are in Love
(acoustic)
Clean
Love Story
Style
This Love
Bad Blood
We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together
(Alternative Version)
Wildest Dreams
(Incorporates an element of “Enchanted” on piano)
Out of the Woods
Shake It Off