Taylor Swift called, and they answered.
Sparkling from head to toe, clutching their phones at all times, and belting out well-memorized lyrics, more than 70,000 of her fans showed up Friday for Swift’s Eras Tour. The July 14 concert — the first of two dates at Empower Field at Mile High — prompted rapture from the opening moments.
See more photos of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour show, night one.
With spectacle and emotion tightly braided, Swift megadosed the faithful at the sold-out show with songs from across her catalog while gracefully navigating costume and set changes against a massive LED screen. It was a feat on par with her “Reputation”-era tour stop at Empower Field more than five years ago. Granted, that was a necessarily more focused and (relatively) edgy concert, but both found an ideal balance of ferocity and all-ages, rainbow-hued smiles that spoke directly to the mostly female, mostly young crowd.
After opening sets from Gracie Abrams and MUNA, Swift’s dancers strutted onto the stage from behind the video wall raising tall, colorful plumage as Swift rose on a platform to sing “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince.” That kicked off the “Lovers”-era portion, with Swift rocking a glammed-out leotard and glittering boots as she vigorously worked through “Cruel Summer,” “The Man” and an ebullient, pro-LGBTQ “You Need to Calm Down.” Her clear, bright vocals lost some nuance in the windy air, assuming you could hear them over the oft-deafening screams from the crowd.
Each of her studio releases was afforded anywhere from two to seven songs, all of which arrived with their own tonal and visual elements. Fetching looks abounded, from flowy, Old Hollywood glamour to Stevie Nicks witchcraft and cheeky cabaret. The albums with the most representation were her newest; “Folklore,” “Evermore” and “Midnights,” which were released during a prolific pandemic era (2020-2022) that also saw her issuing re-recorded versions of “Speak Now” and “Red.”
She addressed it all from the stage, talking about her forced introspection, her new recordings, and her time away from touring, but also her desire to innovate her “excruciatingly autobiographical” writing style.
That new tack has birthed songs like the modest, character-driven “Betty,” which contrasted sharply with sizzling dance classics such as “Shake It Off” or the upbeat “You Belong With Me.” As Swift noted, sentimentality was the point of the night, so why hold back? Few if any gatherings of this size can claim so much vulnerability, positivity and heart.
Swift’s longtime band and her Broadway-quality backing cast knew every note ahead of time, but it was still stunning to see such complex gears moving as one. Swift’s generosity extended to her monologues, and she appeared teary at one point while thanking the thunderous crowd. “I get to be up here with you… the most buoyant and bouncy crowd imaginable,” she said. “You get 1 million bonus points.”
She and her crew (which she graciously thanked) are near the end of an exhausting North American tour, and there weren’t many places for them to take a breath during the show. And yet, Swift belted, whispered, chatted, prowled the stage, tossed her hair, snaked her hips, and gave us dozens of practiced, come-hither looks virtually nonstop for three-and-a-half hours.
The Eras Tour is something of a reaction to the pandemic, she said, but also an attempt to take a broader inventory of her songwriting. Spanning 17 years in a single concert, one era at a time, is less a science than a gut feeling. And Swift made it feel intuitive. During her “secret songs” portion — an acoustic interlude featuring “Picture to Burn” and the live debut of “Timeless” — she got as physically close to the crowd as possible at the end of the long stage. She smiled and laughed and seemed unrehearsed.
Whether it was actually spontaneous didn’t matter. As the 45th and final song “Karma” closed out the night, there was no doubt Swift’s talent, discipline and cinematic poise is far more dazzling than any confetti blasts or fireworks ever could be. But we’ll take those, too.
