My wife and I have won “aunt and uncle of the year.”  For Christmas last year, we got my three nieces, who live in North Carolina, tickets for the Taylor Swift Eras Tour at Sofi Stadium in Los Angeles with us.  We also took my two sisters.  My oldest niece is 15-years old and a huge Swiftie.  She has seen Taylor Swift twice before and knows all of the inside information that Swifties know.  My other two nieces, who are 12 and 9, are Swifties in training.  As the concert was about to begin, my oldest niece told me that it was going to be more than just a concert.  It was going to be an “experience.”  She was right.

Taylor Swift put on a concert like no other concert I have ever attended, and I am not an amateur concertgoer.  Just in the past year, I have been to two other big concerts at Sofi Stadium; Paul McCartney and Billy Joel, as well as seeing Styx, Cheap Trick, 3 Doors Down, The Doobie Brothers (in Phoenix), Rod Stewart (in Las Vegas), Sting (in Las Vegas), and The Cure (in England).  Here are some of the things that make Taylor Swift stand out.

The Bracelets – The experience actually starts way before the concert.  In one of Taylor’s songs, there is a line about making friendship bracelets.  Her fans took the line as a call to action, and now they make friendship bracelets to wear and trade at her concerts.  My wife and I had heard about the phenomenon, so we bought some bead kits from the local craft store, and when my nieces arrived, we had a bracelet-making party at Grandma’s house.  We listened to Taylor Swift music while we made bracelets that spell out album names, song lyrics, or other Taylor-related tidbits.  When we arrived at the concert, everyone had them.  My wife’s biggest takeaway from the concert was that everyone was so open and friendly.  Nobody was shy, which I love.  From the moment we arrived, complete strangers were walking from person to person trading bracelets, having conversations, and making new friends.  Even celebrities have been spotted participating.  This seemed to be my youngest niece’s favorite part, because we could barely drag her away from trading bracelets to leave at the end of the night.

The Clothing – My wife asked me what to wear to the concert and my response was, “it’s not the theatre, it’s a concert.  I would guess people just dress casually.”  Then, I asked my oldest niece.  I was wrong.  She said a lot of the people dress in outfits from Taylor Swift album covers or performances.  She had already picked out a very sparkly dress that looked kind of like a disco ball, along with disco ball earrings.  When we got to the show, there were thousands more sparkly dresses, along with ringmaster outfits, elegant flowy gowns, and other elaborate getups that I don’t even know how to describe.  My mom dropped us off and picked us up from the stadium because parking was over $200, and she said it was worth the drive just to see all of the outfits.  Then there was the number “13” written on most of the girl’s hands.  That is, as you might guess, because 13 is Taylor’s lucky number. 

The Technology – After seeing the Taylor Swift Eras Tour, I was left pondering if there was ever a show in the past that was even close to comparable visually.  The best comparison that I could think of was KISS, who was famous for elaborate outfits, crazy makeup, and breathtaking pyrotechnics.  Technology from the past could not compete with what they were able to do for Taylor Swift.  There was a huge video screen on the back of the stage.  Since the Eras Tour was over 3 hours long, covering her 17-year career, the videos and images on the massive backdrop denoted which “era” of her career she was on. 

The gigantic stage went out into the crowd about 80 yards for Taylor to dance and sing down with her backup dancers.  It had hydraulic platforms that would lift her up from the stage at different times during the show, as well as trap doors that she could drop down into between songs for costume changes. (She probably changed costumes more than 10 times.)  It was also a video stage, which allowed for cool effects like snakes striking at dancers, bicyclists leaving tracks around the stage, and one point where Taylor Swift dives into a trap door and appears to swim from the front end of the stage all the way to the back.

Finally, the coup de gras.  I remember when I first started going to concerts and a ballad would come on, and people in the crowd would hold up a lighter.  Then a few years later, when they became more common, people started to hold up their glowing cellphone screens.  At the Taylor Swift Eras Tour, as you walk into the stadium, you are handed a wristband.  This wristband has a geolocator inside that knows exactly where in the stadium you are.  Then it lights up and flashes different colors depending on where you are standing.  This allows for some amazing effects.  They can flash with the beat of the music.  They can create waves of light or colors, almost like when people do the wave at a sporting event.  They can also make patterns of light in the crowd.  For example, at one point there are hearts made of light on either side of the crowd.  It was astonishing.

The Music – It is, of course, a concert, so the music is what matters the most.  Now, if you have read some of my other articles where I talk about values, politics, and religion, you may think I am exaggerating when I say this, but I am about to say the most controversial thing I have written yet.  Taylor Swift has songwriting chops in the same league as Lennon and McCartney.  As a huge Beatles fan, that is almost blasphemous to say, but she really is a brilliant songwriter.  Just like Lennon and McCartney were able to churn out catchy hit after catchy hit in the 1960s, Taylor Swift is already able to play an over three-hour concert with songs that people sing along with, and most of them you would recognize even if you are a little older than her target audience.  Not only that, but she is still in her songwriting prime, so I am sure there are more chart-toppers to come. 

Speaking of singing along, before going to her last Taylor Swift concert, my oldest niece wanted to be surprised by the setlist, so she didn’t look it up.  She did, however, want to be able to sing along with anything Taylor played, so she looked up and learned the lyrics to all her songs!  Apparently, that is not uncommon.  At one point, Taylor Swift asked the crowd if anybody did any lyric memorization for the show, and there was a thundering response.

The Excitement – The excitement is palpable.  I had only ever seen anything like it in old film of the Beatles.  There were a group of girls sitting near us who were literally sobbing through most of the show.  People (including men) were screaming “Taylor!” at the top of their lungs.  At one point in the show, she finishes a song on the piano and looks up into the crowd and lets everyone go crazy.  It was possibly the loudest I had heard a crowd since being at the Kirk Gibson game at Dodger Stadium.  My niece looked over at me and said, “Last time this ovation lasted 8 minutes before she started again.”  After 8 minutes this time, the ovation was still going for another minute or two, and might have continued longer had Taylor not started talking.  It certainly was an experience I will never forget.