taylor swift: The eras tour (2023)
We do crazy things for love. You quit your job, pack up your stuff, and move halfway across the world. You cut your bathroom space down to one shelf in the medicine cabinet. You get the small closet. You start to appreciate decor pillows. You learn the art of mediation and diplomacy when trying to decide on one place to eat. For the first time in your life you have a skincare routine that isn’t just splashing cold water in your face.
And in my case, you go on eBay, buy a questionable Blu-Ray rip of Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour. Then you go to the local library and print out a faux Era’s Tour Blu-Ray jacket, and print out a second one because the formatting wasn’t right and it cut off half the jacket. Now you fucked with the formatting too much and have to print a third one. Finally, you relent and speak to a librarian to get it just right.
You get home, you take your copy of Argo, throw out the jacket, slip the disc into your Beetlejuice Blu-Ray case(because you alphabetize your physical media like a good boy), slip the Taylor Swift jacket into the blank case with the dubious disc, wrap it, and give it to your girlfriend for her birthday, who stares at it in disbelief for about five minutes.
Then you proceed to watch The Eras Tour: Taylor’s Version with your girlfriend who enlists your cat to reenact the dance in “Willow” because he’s round and orange.
Let me apologize for what I’m about to say, I’m sorry. Now let me say what I’m sorry about: I don’t like Taylor Swift. I never have. I can’t stand her music, to me it feels like grocery store radio. Her writing is just too twee and saccharine for me to enjoy. To be fair, I’m an outlier musically. I’ve performed in symphony orchestras and jazz quintets and ska bands; I’ve never truly enjoyed pop music. My music ideal is funk and jazz. Taylor Swift is on the opposite side of the musical spectrum. It’s not you, it’s me (I’ve never been able to say that before, it’s cathartic).
My girlfriend happens to be the biggest TS fan in the country, and this chasm between us is insurmountable. But for some reason, she’s quick to forgive my shortcomings (and I’m quick to forgive hers).
So we watched all 180 minutes of the Eras Tour. Page has seen it upwards of five times between the theaters and streaming, but this was my first.
The production was absolutely incredible, and TS is obviously a dedicated performer. You’d be hard pressed to find another performer outside of Beyonce that has a production value close to this. I was blown away just trying to imagine how you would coordinate a nationwide tour this complex. The modular stage was very cool, and the dive bomb into the pit by Taylor was pretty cool.
She has a great voice, no one can deny that, but I found the way she moved on stage to be a bit alien. It looked over-choreographed at times, unnatural. There’s this pose (below), where she’s bent at the waist with one straight leg and one cocked leg. It’s a pose that looks so odd to me and she hits it about twenty times in the three-hour runtime. Each variant that came up felt more and more out of place and all I could think about was Bambi trying to stand on his long peg legs, losing his balance. I don’t know, maybe I’m watching this with too critical of an eye.
Just to touch on the camera work for a moment, it was shot completely different from any other concert film I’ve seen. It felt more like a sporting event in the way it was shot with the moving cameras, quick cuts, fun shots of the attendees losing their minds. I wonder how much that has to do with the available equipment in the stadium vs. the direction of Sam Wrench. I’d never heard of Wrench so I checked out his imdb. Prior to this he did several music videos and promos for Disney. It’s a workman’s approach to directing, he’s focused on Taylor’s aesthetic and doesn’t seem to add many artistic flairs, which I feel adds to the sports-like atmosphere. There’s something to be said in there that I didn’t entirely feel the runtime. My eyes comically bulged out of my head when I saw the 160 minutes on the display, but I was actually surprised when it ended.
Despite all of my reservations with Taylor Swift, I had fun sitting alongside Page and watching this. She peppered in trivia about the production and dancers throughout like I always do when we watch an action flick. She danced, she screamed, she even got me involved in moments. Without a doubt, it’ll be a cultural touchstone for the 20s, and probably a highlight of Taylor Swift’s career. I was just happy to spend time with Page.
rating:
Page/5 (I’m too scared to give it an actual rating)
bonus
I worked hard on this Blu Ray and wanted to show it off.
