The last time Taylor Swift was in Dublin came at one of the lowest ebbs in her seemingly ever-ascendant career. Two nights at Croke Park, just over six years ago, were far from sold out, coming off the back of the mixed reception to Reputation.
Since then, there have been five new studio albums and four vaunted ‘Taylor’s Versions’ rerecords of her older albums, That’s a rough total of 225 songs, new and old, since Swift was last in Ireland. It’s a lot to digest, maximalist fan service.
And yet she’s never been bigger. All those albums, bar 2019’s Lover, came out post-March 2020, when the pandemic left us desperate for live shows. We all entered different, er, eras – Swift’s saw her change sound and recruit The National’s Aaron Dessner as co-producer for folklore/evermore. New fans and renewed critical acclaim followed.
Her first stadium tour since Reputation, The Eras Tour, began in March 2023 and was a sensation across the US last year. It’s the highest-grossing tour in history, the first to pass $1bn. Simply put, Taylor Swift returns to Dublin the biggest act on the planet.
Now, she could have done a week of sold-out Croke Park shows. Instead she’s settled for three nights at the c50,000-capacity Aviva Stadium. Home to the Ireland men’s soccer and rugby teams, it has probably never seen such joy as this weekend’s trio of gigs (apologies to Stephen Kenny). Sequins, pink cowboy hats, glitter, gems colourful cowboy boots, and bracelets – so many beaded friendship bracelets – are the order of the day.
And everybody knows what’s coming after Paramore (what an interesting career Hayley Williams has had) complete support duties: Swift’s show lasts over three hours and 15 minutes, takes in more than 44 songs, and stretches back to her hopeful second album Fearless, pulling tracks from across her Eras. Everyone has their own favourites they’re counting down to (well, after ‘All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version)’) and the ones they’re planning the toilet break for.
We knew 1989 was full of bangers but we weren’t expecting the folklore/evermore era to be such a dud – ‘Style’, ‘Blank Space’, and ‘Shake it Off’ sounds like the best songs in the world by comparison. Of course, Swift released her latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, in April. It sounded like she was coasting. Live, the songs are fine, ‘Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me’, with its moving podium, is the highlight.
As for Taylor Swift herself, there’s nobody better at pointing, she extols the virtues of Ireland (particularly how Folklore just feels like an album written here), and you simply can’t look away from her, even when it feels like she is giving it less than she could.
But it’s the fans who are the star of the show. It’s incredibly loud from the start and never lets up. The ‘Cruel Summer’ bridge (“I love you ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard?”) is incredible. ‘Love Story’ is beautiful.
The cry of ‘fuck the patriarchy’ from ‘All Too Well’ is life-affirming. The cheer after the ho-hum ‘Champagne Problems’ was something else, though. It’s unbelievable. A security guard agrees that he’s never heard anything like it before. Of course she had buttered us up before, but there’s nothing like the cries of a pop audience. If only we could bottle it up.
Like Marvel fans predicting/dissecting end-credit sequences, the ‘surprise songs’ that precede the Midnights closing segment are feverishly anticipated. Friday night got ‘Sweet Nothing’, namechecking Wicklow. Saturday got a song she says she’s never done live before – ‘The Albatross’, followed by ‘Dancing with our Hands Tied’, ‘This Love’, and ‘Ours’.
The Eras Tour returns to the US later in the year and is set to wrap up in Canada in December. The millions of fans who experienced it will never forget it. Like Taylor Swift sings on ’22’, it feels like a perfect night.
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