Taylor Swift
9th November 2018
Mount Smart Stadium, Auckland, New Zealand.
Review by Kate Taylor. Photography by Doug Peters.
Taylor Swift delivered a confetti bomb of joy to her fans in a spectacular Friday night performance at Auckland’s Mt Smart Arena. Despite persistent rain falling overhead this did not stop the streams of T-Swift fans filling the stadium in their concert and Taylor Swift cosplay finery, glittering just as brightly as Taylor herself. Making her seventh visit to our shores, Taylor was accompanied by Charli XCX and Broods, making this triple threat power pop line up the hottest ticket in town.
Erupting the evening into life with blistering hits like Boys, 1999 or her Icona Pop feature I Love It, Charli XCX is a neon candy burst wrapped in black PVC and wicked attitude; and the audience that have arrived early are eating up everything she’s giving us in a set that felt all too short if measured by the awesome vibe Charli XCX injected into the stadium and with her astute statement that Taylor Swift’s Reputation Tour is also unique as this leg features the talents of three incredible performers that also happen to be women, giving a roadmap for younger warrior women that want to go forth and be their best them in whatever field they desire.
In an emotional and triumphant ‘home-town’ performance Broods crowd-slayed with their layered and worldly beats, adorned with the crystalline voice of Georgia dappling the arrangements like little orbs of light. Providing a clever set list that filled and buoyed the stadium up taking us from a drizzly dusk to a wet gem night sky, Georgia stomped the stage commandingly in an incredibly fierce outfit that my fashion forward companion for the evening absolutely fell in love with. It was clearly an emotional and special moment for Georgia to perform in this setting, her joy was infectious and set the perfect mood of elation for the evening to come.
There’s absolutely no denying that Taylor Swift is an icon. Swift’s saturation of modern culture is so extensive that almost any person you meet will have heard of her and if that’s not the case they at least know and like one of her songs without knowing she’s the creative genius that has produced it. An ingenious marketing behemoth, a man-eater, wide-eyed little girl, everyone’s best friend; labels like those are hurled at Swift in a constant barrage alongside the ever-present adoration, this weight must be exhausting to express, create and perform under. Yet after a world tour, appearing in Auckland on the second to last date of the schedule and after several recent ‘rain shows’, Taylor Swift literally shook off a cold and treated Auckland to the best live music stadium performance I have ever seen.
Taylor Swift’s Reputation Stadium Tour is more like theatre, exquisite in imagination and embracing the ideas of fantasy, with cinematic flourishes that bring Taylor Swift’s songs to life in a visual feast painted by huge crystal-clear video screens that project larger than life Taylors out to the audience; backed by frighteningly skilled dancers that mix between loose street style to spinning in swathes of red silken ripples spinning onstage and onscreen. Sickeningly beautiful high fashion performance costumes, fireworks, fire spurts, steam spurts, a working fountain of which the water within it dances in syncopation with the beat of the music, full band, Georgia from Broods and Charli XCX making an appearance with Taylor, multiple gigantic snakes swaying in the breeze, cages that suspend Taylor out over her loving fans and transport her to satellite stages out in the middle of the arena…all of this is a mind-blowing extravaganza that delights the heart and excites the mind.
But none of this comes close to the thrill of seeing Taylor connect with her audience and really share of herself in her performance for them. Taylor is genuinely having the best time delivering everyone’s favourite song just for them and she can do this with ease as her level of fitness in physicality with her dancing and with her voice is staggering. Taking time to speak to her fans during the show or even high-fiving dozens and dozens of them on the run Taylor made between satellite stages, it’s clear that it’s not just an act, Taylor really does live for the people that live with her and that’s an astonishing thing to see. Then dismantle all the mystique, tear down all the production aesthetics and put just this powerhouse of a being under a spotlight with an acoustic guitar and Taylor Swift can deliver flawlessly, playing on the song’s structure with her enviable range while jamming out with the riff on a personal dedication to Auckland and New Zealand in a rendition of Out of the Woods, or just Taylor musing her thoughts to her fans as she tinkles a bespoke Reputation piano.
Taylor Swift is formidable. Walking in a casual fan and interested observer of Swift’s career, I walked out a jaw-dropped convert, wholly wishing I could hit rewind immediately on an evening that made me feel not just like I was at an iconic career performance but actually inside of it and that’s something truly extraordinary.
Were you there at Mount Smart Stadium for this humungous Pop extravaganza? Or have you seen Taylor Swift perform live somewhere else before? Tell us about it in the comments below!
Setlist:
- (Video Introduction)
- …Ready for It?
- I Did Something Bad
- Gorgeous
- Style / Love Story / You Belong With Me
- (Video Interlude)
- Look What You Made Me Do
- End Game
- King of My Heart
- Delicate
- Shake It Off [Featuring Charli XCX and Georgia Nott]
- Dancing With Our Hands Tied [Acoustic]
- Out of the Woods [Acoustic]
- Blank Space
- Dress
- Bad Blood / Should’ve Said No
- Don’t Blame Me
- Long Live / New Year’s Day [Piano Version]
- (Video Interlude)
- Getaway Car
- Call It What You Want
- We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together / This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
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