When your life is the canvas for your art and for your business, the lines between what is and what you want it to be becomes smudged like an Impressionist painting, it is as though real life becomes realer for the observer by having it hyperventilating -everything is louder but clearer, prettier but more intense and for Taylor Swift, surely the primary pop star of the 21st century, the place where art and life meet and you can’t see where they begin and end.
At Metlife, Taylor Swift brought her life to life and, much like the personalized Christmas gifts to favorite Swifties she wrapped and mailed last year, it was a beautiful and though filled act of giving, it made the mythic real. It is one thing to perform a two hour plus Stadium scaled rock show, it is something else to bring out the US Women’s Soccer Team, on the night of the day they’d received a ticker tape down the Canyon Of Heroes, to help you do it.
It was that sort of performance and that sort of evening, one where Taylor became what she claimed to be, her sincerity harkened back to the Fearless Tour where her wide eyed pleasure and surprise at her fans adulation were met with disbelief (she doesn’t walk through the audience any more!!!) and also to another world, where the folks she know’s as Internet followers become real in front of her.
As happy to speak to her audience, the 60,000 teenage girls(-some must have been toddlers when I first reviewed Taylor) and call them friend as to sing, she took Metlife into her inner life , how she does it, and it was an earnest, beautiful evening of pop for girls, so well crafted it crossed over to a mainstream audience, although none of them appeared to show on this first of two sold out, 120.000 ticket extravaganzas.
In the past, love has been Taylor’s wheelhouse, what she lived for, but 1989 found her between guys and obsessed with her new home, New York City. Sleight of hand substitution, during a definition of romance near the end of the evening, she succeeded in including the tour within the continuum begun in 2009.
Taylor promised a special evening and she delivered one, all the thrill of her current album overloaded setlist (though a beat heavy “Love Story” -written when she was 17 years old she reminds us was a huge success), she invited the Weeknd out to sing “Can’t Feel My Face” with her (produced by -ta dah, Max Martin), brought out BFF’s Lily Aldridge, Lena Dunham, Gigi Hadid and Hailee Steinfeld to recreate the superheroes of “Bad Blood” and, used the runway where she spent most of the evening,with Heidi Klum and the soccer team, during “Style”.
She wove her story and her songs, and she made the evening big and explosive on a dynamic “Blank Space” and small and intimate, on “You Are In Love” with just an acoustic guitar and the audience harmonizing. The sound was manufactured but consider it the A.I. of pre-programmed music, intimate tapes, loops, and choirs of Taylor’s when necessary. It wasn’t sleight of hand, rather it was how it is done in 2015 and how it is done well.
Because 1989 isn’t a love album, the burgeoning sexuality and passion Taylor gave songs like “State Of Grace” on the Red tour wasn’t available to her, and Taylor’s concert wasnt about that: it was about the reality of trying to live through mistakes and the realness of friendship. And, of course, as a New Yorker, I was thrilled with her love of our great city.
Preceding Taylor in the entirely thankless task of warming us up, was Youtube sensation Shawn Mendes, Australian singer songwriter Vance Joy, who saved himself from oblivion with a well placed cover of “Stay With” and finally, the unannounced three sister rock and blues band Haim, who performed a pretty good “Oh Well”, and were about as good as they could be given the circumstances.
Taylor opened to “Welcome To New York” and illuminated by huge LCD screens all over the stadium she was loud, brash and received waves of adulation in return. “Blank Slate”, with informed use of loops, was a showstopper, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” found her stripping on her electric guitar and wittily changing her first EDM hit into a nifty rocker, just about the only time she moved from her steady modern pop palette. The stage was a thing of beauty, though oddly constructed with neither width nor depth, she remained on the runway that jutted out into the middle of the audience and if I had payed big bucks for front row I would not be amused. She didn’t play the sides at all. An all male dance troop performed with her and the backup band were mostly invisible.
Between songs Tay’s BFFs testified to her love of cats and keen friendship and kindness, her faith in the power of friendship between women. Every moment was choreographed but every moment was free and true. “I write songs only about things I consider to be magical and romantic. That’s it”, Taylor claimed. That’s the anthem and that’s the truth.
It was a good evening though not as good as 2013, the music wasn’t as well performed, there wasn’t enough shadings to the sound and Taylor seemed to take a step back in presenting herself as a fully formed woman. Still, a consistently entertaining victory lap for the pop superstar, well paced, fun filled jam packed with comfort and joy.
Not everybody, indeed not many people, can perform Stadium rock, it is an art form in itself and to do so while maintaining your humanity and compassion, to do so while insisting upon retaining the connection with your friends, your audience, is nearly impossible.My response to Swift’s decency is simple awe.
I have been questioning Swift’s integrity recently, her business hardheadedness is unappealing and irrelevant and 2015 has shown her with her teeth bared. But seeing her live again reminds me that Taylor Swift is one of our greatest stars, a lovely, compassionate woman who through the social media has made a direct connection with, and improved the lives of, millions of teenage girls and one middle aged man. She writes superb songs that sell millions and performs them very well. If the 1989 World Tour was an Impressionist painting it would be a Matisse -now how bad blood can that be?
Grade: A-
The song title is Blank Space not Blank Slate.
Matisse was not an Impressionist.
youre half right, matisse is considered part of the impressionist movement -I was gonna go for monet – the “never mind the monet” pun, but wiser minds prevailed… I was thinking exactly of something like ” Striped Robe, Fruit, and Anemones” from 1940 -IL