The first time I saw Taylor Swift was not only the single best concert I've ever seen, it was
one of the more magical nights of my life. So you can imagine how excited I was to see her descend upon Heinz Field once again to bring back the fury for 50,000-some good ole' country girls (and me). Can I say that this show was as good as the last one? No, but you know what they say, you never really get over your first. And one thing I can say is that Taylor impressed me in ways
I certainly never expected her to.
In 2011 Taylor brought us the Speak Now tour. 2013 brings us the Red tour. While all of Taylor's releases run the traditional gamut from ballad to barn burner, so far every one of her full-length albums has had its own particular lean or mode. Self-titled was more country. Fearless was more soft-rock or folky. Speak Now was more rock. And Red, Red is more pop.
In proper form, everything here was predicated on Red. The sets and interludes were lavish like olde Hollywood, the classic conception of the idyllic mainstream. Even Taylor's look is more pop these days, foregoing her country curls for Gaga-esque straightness(though if you've seen Red's music videos, you already knew that). Even the old songs were duly Red-ified. Once-common banjos were relegated mostly to exile as Taylor trotted out a solo-acoustic rendition of Our Song and played the pop mix version of Love Story. She also gave us a bizarre burlesque sort of pop version for You Belong With Me, as opposed to its guitar-heavy original mix.
Of 17 songs performed, 12 were from Red. This is, of course, precisely as it should be. That's the most important part of an album tour. Us superfans will have decades to hear the greatest hits, but this could be one of very few chances to hear Red's glorious deepcuts in all their wanton obscurity. And Taylor saw fit to oblige us, bringing out the top 3 deep cuts from Red: a pumped up, electronified version of Holy Ground, a spot on performance of the meditative ballad called The Lucky One, and best of all a powerhouse, entrenchant rendition of Taylor's #1 best melancholic story-song to date, All Too Well.
The hits from Red also shined in rare form last night, with a balls out, dubstep-enhanced barn-burning performance of I Knew You Were Trouble, and a startlingly spectacular take on the soft, enchanting Begin Again.
This was pretty much exactly the concert that Red deserved. And I'm grateful for that, because Red deserves a great concert. That being said, Red is not as good of an album as Speak Now, and so it isn't as good of a tour either. But to be fair, I'm more of a rock and folk fan, so naturally I lean towards Speak Now and Fearless over Red and self-titled.
The really surprising thing about the Red tour is that Taylor just throws the hitlist out the dang window, to my joyous chagrin. In 2011 I was only a little surprised that formidable midlevel hits like Teardrops on My Guitar and Today Was a Fairytale were left out of the set... in 2013 I was dumbfounded to find Taylor had jettisoned several of her all-time biggest hits. And it's not even like she's excluding hits strictly in favor of her new songs. She's pulling out album cuts like Sparks Fly, and then not playing EITHER of that same album's BIGGEST hits: Back to December and Mine. When I saw Taylor in '11 I specifically thought to myself "she'll probably play Fifteen at every show she ever does from this point on." I don't think she's played it once on this whole tour.
This just holy fucking what, speechless jibberish fjkjdlfjl. She's even pulling out deep cuts (on other dates of the tour) like Cold As You, Forever & Always, and bizarre cover songs, all the while ignoring half of her hit songs. Hits? What are those? Anyone who was under the impression that Taylor Swift was just a mindless pop sensation, you can put your dunce cap on now, consider yourself obliteratingly debunked. If The Beatles and Tom Petty haven't already convinced you that writing three minute love songs for 90% of your career is *not* incompatible with integrity as an artist, then you haven't been paying attention.
While I might not have preferred the songs Taylor picked for this particular concert (God what I would have given to hear Cold As You!!), this was still a jaw-dropping development for me because it has massively wide-reaching implications for the rest of Taylor's career. Think about it, Taylor Swift already has nearly enough hits to pack a 17 song setlist. If she felt beholden to her radio songs the way many artists do, after one more record we'd pretty much have Taylor's setlist written in stone for the rest of her life. Now we know it's not going to be that way, we know that Taylor has no qualms about dropping hits left and right in order to give an interesting and unpredictable show. I can't wait to find out what she'll play next!
Equally important, we also see that Taylor is not going to completely ignore her old album cuts until the proverbial 30th anniversary "classic albums in their entirety" tour(s). I may have missed the self-titled and Fearless tours, but there's a chance that someday I could still get to see my favorite deep cuts like A Place in This World, Hey Stephen, and The Way I Loved You! Now that I know this... God, next tour I'm going to have to go see her in Cleveland and possibly NYC as well!
As a nerd with a particular interest and appreciation for the construction of setlists and the consequences therein, I'm pretty impressed with Taylor's work in that area. The one way that I do think Taylor should change her approach to these setlists is: include some off-album tracks. Not only has Taylor had some pretty huge off-album hits (Ours, Today Was a Fairytale, Safe & Sound), but Red has its host of deluxe edition bonus tracks, and if she doesn't play any of them on this tour, will she ever play them?
The Red Tour has a slot that changes from night to night, it would be a good idea to include some off-album tracks into the rotation. Other than that though, I'm impressed with the picks for this slot. In particular, she did once played the song that she did with Tim McGraw, without Tim McGraw. Which should tell us she'd be open to playing Safe & Sound without The Civil Wars, and The Last Time without Gary Lightbody.
Long story short... It was a great show. Compelling, enthused, and certainly unpredictable. Nowhere near as good as last time, but even so, the extent to which I am genuinely impressed with Taylor Swift continues to surpass itself by exponents. She wields both willful confidence, and unmistakable talent. I am downright giddy to see where her career goes. I know we're 25 years early, but I feel like Taylor might be an artist to get even better in the twilight of her career. Being relieved of the duty to master the charts could empower her to become even bolder, as it did for Tom Petty.
Setlist
{7/6/13 at Heinz Field, Pittsburgh PA}
