Review: Taylor Swift - The Eras Tour (Wembley Stadium)

Review by Daz Gale

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The biggest show in the world rolled into London this weekend as Taylor Swift brought her record-breaking Eras Tour to Wembley Stadium for the first 3 of a record-breaking 8 nights there. After the longest twelve month wait ever, it was finally my turn to head into this mammoth celebration of Taylor’s career, but how could it ever live up to the unprecedented hype? Spoiler alert… it did.

While this website may be more about reviewing theatre shows all over the UK, we do like to dabble in concerts a little bit, with music another one of my big passions in life. When you have a show as big and theatrical as The Eras Tour, it feels like a natural fit to sit alongside our reviews of the latest West End shows, and until we get the fully staged production of ‘Female Rage: The Musical’, this will have to do for our Taylor content on here.

As Taylor Swifts popularity has increased over the years, each subsequent tour has proven bigger than the last. With a planned tour for ‘Lover’ cancelled due to the pandemic, The Eras Tour marks Taylor’s first tour for five years, with the concert I attended coincidentally being six years to the very day she last played Wembley Stadium in her Reputation Stadium tour. The idea behind this tour is to celebrate Taylor’s illustrious career with sections devoted to every album of hers (excluding her self-titled debut but let’s overlook that). The European leg featured a revised setlist, owing to the fact she casually released a new album in-between legs of the tour, with this show consisting of 10 separate sections.

Where most concerts tend to last for around two hours, Taylor has broken free of the constraints and expectations of the majority of tours, instead playing a 45 song set, totalling three and a half hours. You can’t accuse her of not giving audiences their money’s worth – I have been lucky enough to go to a lot of amazing concerts in my time, but I have never been to one like this before. The longest show I have been to from one headline act, but the time flew by.

It is the concept behind The Eras Tour that makes it such a spectacular event. From the opening of recent hit single ‘Cruel Summer’, the eras and smashes keep on coming with ‘Love Story’, ‘We Are Never Getting Back Together’ and ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ all played early in the show. The only time the action slows slightly is during the set combining ‘Folklore’ and its sister album ‘Evermore’, showcasing Taylor at her singer/songwriter best as she effortlessly captivates the audience with a guitar and a mossy cabin. In an already long set filled to the brim with songs from her packed catalogue, the audacity to then do a 10 minute song in all its glory in the epically glorious ‘All Too Well’ and have I seem like no time had passed at all is a testament to Taylor’s abilities to grab an audience and enrapture them throughout.

To pick out highlights from this marathon concert isn’t the easiest of tasks, but the ‘1989’ and ‘Reputation’ eras proved to be standouts with ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ and ‘Shake It Off’ having the audience roaring the words back to her and dancing their feet off. The recently released ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ proved to be another highlight as the 89,000 strong audience relished the chance to hear these newly released numbers that have instantly joined Taylor’s older numbers to become loved classics. With single ‘Fortnight’ featuring fantastic staging and the anthemic ‘Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?’, the third night at Wembley boasted an extra surprise as her boyfriend Travis Kelce made his on stage debut for a cute and funny skit before era closing number ‘I Can Do It With A Broken Heart’.

Stadium concerts can feel too big for some artists while others fail to make use of the space – not an issue for Taylor in her sprawling stage reaching every corner of the pitch. While 89,000 people were packed in the stadium, each of them had moments where Taylor felt much closer to them as if it was in a smaller space, with her ability to connect to an audience and feel like she is singing solely to that person at times a beautiful element to her storytelling nature. With the main stage hosting some larger props, transforming it into an office and a cabin, the middle of the pitch taking her to new heights and plenty of tricks and surprises hidden away in every bit of the stage, The Eras Tour was as thrilling visually as it was sonically, with a particular nod to Taylor’s seemingly never-ending outfit changes representing each era.

A masterstroke in The Eras Tour is Taylor’s tradition of mixing it up every night with the surprise song section, ensuring no two shows are ever the same as she delves into hundreds of songs from her catalogue, much to the audiences delight. While it is very much a game of roulette whether you get one of your personal favourites or not, it is the unknown that makes it all the more exciting. For this performance, we were treated to the first ever live performance of ‘Us’, a song released two days prior where she was joined by singer Gracie Abrams, whose album it appears on. The second surprise song saw Taylor mash up three tracks from ‘1989’ with each new song of the three delivering ear-piercing screams.

Though this was very much Taylor Swift’s concert, the support acts on offer were world class too. Paramore rocked the stadium with such ease, you almost forgot it wasn’t their concert, with ‘The Only Exception’ and ‘I’m Into You’ providing early singalongs. Rising star Benson Boone appeared for one night only, wowing an audience with recent number one ‘Beautiful Things’ among other songs and demonstrating a commanding stage presence way beyond his 22 years. It’s also safe to say I have never seen somebody backflip as they left the stage at Wembley Stadium before, but perhaps I’ve just been going to the wrong shows?

While The Eras Tour is painstakingly crafted and masterfully executed, it is the atmosphere that truly elevates this to something else. The Swifties, as they are affectionately known, create such a gorgeous vibe, it is hard not to join the mood. From swapping friendship bracelets to the adoring way they sang and danced along, I have experienced no shortage of dramas at concerts in the past (special mention to the drunk woman constantly hitting me at Girls Aloud the night before this concert) but this was among the most joyous. In her music, Taylor Swift has created a community of music lovers and in the Eras tour, she has given them a home to celebrate it.

It is Taylor’s talents as a performer that makes you understand why she is at the top of her game. Singing completely live and bringing her carefully crafted music and lyrics to life, her stage presence lights up the entire stadium. Leaving Wembley completely in awe of what I had just seen, The Eras Tour doesn’t feel like the tour of the year but the tour of a generation – one of these rare events that easily manages world domination where it now owns the title of the highest grossing tour of all time. To get the chance to witness the biggest singer in the world at the moment at her creative peak was an experience myself and everyone else lucky to be in attendance will remember forever. The Eras Tour really does live up to its reputation of being every bit as remarkable as everybody else had been saying and has left me excited for what the future holds for this phenomenal performer.

Taylor Swift played three nights at Wembley Stadium from June 21st – 23rd and returns in August as part of her sold-out Eras Tour.