On Eras Tour, Taylor Swift Can Take Us Anywhere She Wants

Taylor Swift performs March 31, 2023 in Arlington, Tex. (photo by David Brendan Hall)

After a countdown clock blasting Lesley Gore’s 1963 anthem on feminine emancipation, “You Don't Own Me,” Taylor Swift took the stage to a recorded medley from past works.

In the prelude mix for the Eras Tour – a roadshow which revisits her catalog including four un-toured records – the kickoff to the bridge of “My Tears Ricochet,” a 2020 track to come later in the night, looped. “And I can go anywhere I want … Anywhere I want.”

On her second evening at the AT&T Center in Arlington, Tex., on Saturday, April 1, Swift opened up her touring-oriented artistic process. Linking fan support as integral to enlivening the structure of her songwriting, she specifically instructed some 70,000 to scream the bridge of “Cruel Summer,” the most brilliantly stadium-sized track off 2019’s COVID-19-shuttered Lover. Yes, these fans know exactly where the bridge hits.

After the track, like a faux-coy fighter in the ring, she fanned herself and then kissed a bicep: “You’re making me feel like I could do anything I wanted, and you would think it’s cool.”

Over those bridges and through the woods, we will follow Swift anywhere she wants. Due to scheduling conflict, Chronicle photographer David Brendan Hall could only attend the Friday show, kicking off Swift’s three-night Dallas-area run, while I wasn’t available for the I-35 trek until Saturday. Unconventional, but we’ll make it work for Swift’s first touring show in five years.

Night one from Taylor Swift's Eras three-night stopover in Arlington (photo by David Brendan Hall)

Luckily, the extravagant, almost-three-hour production doesn’t allow for much wiggle room in the photographed visuals. The alternations came later, in Swift’s rotating picks for a two-song acoustic portion, which provided the night’s highlight.

Unlike our roving photographer, I’d never traveled out of town for a stadium tour. Eras’ unique pandemic wealth of untapped material felt like a worthy occasion, and I had a friend who’d acquired her own ticket in the chaotic TicketMaster rollout, as the Arlington show was one of a few sold separately through SeatGeek. She told me she knew spending over $200 (low for Eras pricing) was “an insane thing to do,” but she did.

I first saw Swift at someone’s birthday party trip to the San Antonio Rodeo at 12 years old, an age I remember wishing would hurry up to roll over to be the singer’s favorite, 13. A few years later on the Fearless Tour, I landed the right age to sing along to “Fifteen.” (This birthday party group also went to church together, and we debated the lyrical meaning of “Abigail gave everything she had to a boy who changed his mind.”)

Given that Arlington’s Fearless portion, just after sunset, found the audience’s biggest response yet, I’d guess a few twentysomething Texas women in cowboy boots held similar histories. The conductor of so many girlhood introductions to the possibility of crafting self-narratives, Swift ushered us to our next lyrical destination, “right there, in the middle of the parking lot.” An electrified edition of the 2008 album’s title track earned a giant bridge singalong, a reminder of the material’s full-fledged arena momentum since its country pop origins.

Melting ice and Christmas trees marked an abrupt pivot to the subtler 2020 songs of Evermore, an energy drop placed too early in the setlist. There was a charming novelty in the aesthetic swerve – see: caped sorcerers dancing with fireballs, during the plucked brooding of “Willow” – which feels unlikely to live on as prominently in future tour configurations. When Swift wanted to sit at a moss-covered piano and talk about how much she loves bridges, further merging artistic formatting with face-to-face potential, the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex was game.

Taylor Swift, March 31, 2023 (photo by David Brendan Hall)

“When I write a song, my favorite part to write is the bridge,” she said. “I know, it’s a common belief that everyone remembers the chorus, and I know the hook is apparently important. But you can make the bridge go like, ‘weee!’ And that’s my favorite moment to sing with a crowd.”

Later in the performance, Evermore’s preceding companion album Folklore integrated more seamlessly. Witchy energy swapped for a compellingly raw, Stevie Nicks-style slight dishevelment. The 2020 album’s “Illicit Affairs” was shortened to just the yell-along bridge.

Alongside her knowing gaze blasted on the Jumbotron, the star has applied her 33-year-old view to the 10-minute expansion of 2012’s “All Too Well,” part of an ongoing effort to re-record past material for full ownership rights. More of Swift’s savvy expression, her business interests caught the cult favorite track up in decades with added verses making explicit its discussion of an age gap relationship. Onstage alone on acoustic guitar, she took her hands off the instrument to painfully grab her chest and sing:

“You said if we had been closer in age maybe it would've been fine, and that made me want to die.” As the song played out with more hindsight updates, after so many of the night’s bubbly winks, Swift finally looked detached and determined. Well, she certainly nailed a formative experience this listener endured in the decade-plus since seeing her live last.

Prior to an outro-style finale centered around latest Midnights, which turned the stage into an actual chess board of Swift’s precision, she headed to the end of her runway to make two tracks’ Eras Tour debuts. Dedicated to friends in attendance at the stadium, she played “Death by a Thousand Cuts” to show co-writer Jack Antonoff how much audiences love the bridge, and “Clean” at the behest of opener Gracie Abrams. Other stars made the trek for Taylor: Native of Arlington-neighboring suburb Grand Prairie, Selena Gomez and her sister caused a traffic jam around a VIP tent during second opener Beabadoobee. By the time I walked over to rubberneck, Ethan Hawke and his daughters sat inside.

Taylor Swift, March 31, 2023 (photo by David Brendan Hall)

I’d put in the miles again to witness the pure insight into Swift’s songwriting that was the acoustic “Death by a Thousand Cuts,” a B-side off Lover. In vintage Taylor fashion, she built the song whole all by herself with bright guitar strums – right after a background dollhouse had burned down, with rooms representing her different eras. So thrilled with the reception of the track’s rapid-fire bridge, she asked everyone if they’d do it again.

Lucky for us, Swift flubbed it the second take, asking, “Do you think I can even do it? Why do I write things like this?” Needing the crowd to pull off the composition, she quickly spun her finger in a circle and ran the lines to herself in the evening’s most revealing moment. And when Swift launched back in, the voices were right there with her.