I’ll start by saying that I will do my best to leave biases out of this whole topic! Also if you have yet to see Taylor Swift’s Red tour there will be spoilers in here so please stop reading now!
First off I’ll dive right into the show! From start to finish the sold out Rogers Center crowd of 45, 000 people was deafening loud. Especially since a great portion of them were girls under the age of 16 with the highest pitched screams you will ever here. I was almost hoping at points Taylor wouldn’t say Toronto because following that word would come a tidal wave of ear piercing shrieks! But nevertheless our ears survived and enjoyed Taylor’s 18 song set. Mainly covering Red, Taylor used a lot of dialog to help eat away at her two hour time slot for the evening. Lets just jump right into the breakdown for her first of two shows in Toronto:
The Good:
- Crowd and atmosphere!! The place was rocking all night. I am a sucker for fans screaming lyrics, clapping and all that and tonight she had 45, 000 chiming in on her act which was incredible!
- Apparently in her meet and greet earlier in the day a fan requested a song off her first album which Taylor ended up playing. That song was ‘Tim Mcgraw’!!! Whoever this fan was I love you!
- Entertainment Value, the show was definitely a spectacle! Numerous outfit changes, dancers, transforming stages, fireworks; you name it the visuals were never lacking!
The Bad:
- It might just be me but it seemed like sometimes Taylor was doing this weird cocky stare at the crowd for minutes at a time and it just felt awkward! The girl beside me even commented by yelling ‘Just Start Singing’. I get the effect she was going for but doing it every three songs was getting very annoying!
- Wayyy to much dialog! Every song was introduced in the most scripted and cheesy way that would always end with her completing her sentence with the song title. In a two hour time slot if she would have cut half the dialog she could have easily fit in another 2 or 3 songs!
The Ugly:
- The Sound System!!! This is out of Taylor’s control but it did not do her any favors! There was a massive echo towards the back of the rogers center and it became really annoying as the show went on!
This show had something for everyone! Endless amounts of Pop, a bit of country and a surprisingly heavy bass during ‘Trouble’ which had me feeling like I was watching a dub step show for a few minutes there! All in all her dire fans will love this tour, her regular fans will enjoy it and people like me will have a good night out! For me I am happy to see that the line has finally been drawn between pop and country for her and she can no longer cross back into the country world! Don’t get me wrong her first album is and will always be one of my favorite country albums but no one can try and tell me that either of her last two albums were country! That being said you can’t talk about the music industry without bringing up Taylor Swift because like it or not she is arguably the biggest star across all genres of music and has put up numbers that this industry has not seen for many years, so for that you have to congratulate her!
This is a topic that always brings up a good debate and one I love talking about so please feel free to comment or email in any thoughts, points, arguments, anything really!! We would love to hear them!!
