52 Countries in 52 Weeks, Part 8: Taylor Swift

In Which I Get Floor Tickets To The Biggest Concert Tour In The World, And Treat It Like An Anthropological Experience

Let’s start with a story about my dad — or rather, a story my dad would tell me. 

While he’s been a tradesman, handyman, former Coast Guard employee, environmentalist, among other things, a traveller he is not. When he and my brother join me in Italy later this year, it will be the first time he’s left Canada in several decades.

But in July 1978, he took a big road trip. He was 17, and headed to Boulder, Colorado for a concert.

Kansas, Eddie Money, and Peter Tosh were on the bill, which at that time would be a pretty good show in itself. 

The headliners were The Rolling Stones.

I think my dad talked about this decades later as a sort of coming-of-age story, or maybe a way to try and show (like all dads) that He Was Cool Once Too. 

To my mind though, the neatest thing about the story was the context: The Rolling Stones had just put out Some Girls, now generally considered to be their last great album. At the time, they said it would likely be their final tour (they now, of course, are on a tour literally sponsored by AARP). The Stones by that point had been an iconic band for close to 15 years, so the setlist was partly album promotion, and partly a greatest hits show. 

And I always thought: what a cool slice of history! The biggest musical act in the world is doing a historic tour, and you got to see it up close? You went against the attitude you had the rest of your life, went to a foreign country, and did something you’ll remember forever? That’s a story. That’s a moment. 

Late last year, Taylor Swift announced the European dates for her Eras Tour. 

I thought about my dad, and clicked the link to see when the shows were.

Here’s the One Neat Trick to get Taylor Swift tickets that don’t seem crazy expensive: be in Europe. 

The Eras Tour is a global phenomenon setting heights for money and attendance and cultural capital that are pretty hard to compare to anything. 

In Europe, it’s a slightly smaller global phenomenon than America. And on this continent, there are plenty of regulations that make scalping tickets less lucrative, if not illegal all together. 

I didn’t really consider any of this when I saw that Swift was going to be in Portugal the same time I had sort of tentatively scheduled my transition from South America to Europe. I just put my name in a lottery for tickets, indicated I would take any that were available, and then waited.

A couple of days later, I got an email, saying there was a ticket available. In fact, it was a second tier VIP ticket, on the floor, at the far end of the stage. 

The price was about $500 Canadian, which gave me a small pause. However, I thought about the story, thought about how much it would cost back home, and thought about the fact that the point of this year, among other things, was to explore not only cities and countries, but a little bit more of the human experience. Every other year of my life I can be a little bit boring. This year, I saved and put myself in this position to do memorable things. 

Going to the biggest concert tour of the century certainly qualified. 

So I purchased the tickets, figured out the logistics of wrapping up the South America leg and flying to Lisbon, and then waited for several months.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I decided to, for the first time in my life, actually listen to her songs.

On the surface, I am among the least qualified people to give thoughts about a Taylor Swift concert. 

I’m a middle-aged white guy who listens to boomer rock, who prior to six months ago could probably only name five of her songs, who has probably gone to less than 10 big arena/stadium concerts in his life. 

More than that, people sort of annoy me. Feelings definitely irritate me. Songs about love and jealousy and heartbreak and doubts and second chances are interesting as intellectual exercises, but I don’t particularly have a personal frame of reference for them. 

However, as an anthropological experience, it seemed like great fun. As a musical theatre geek and someone with an appreciation for stagecraft and history, I knew the vibes would be enjoyable. And it was an excuse to do a deep dive into someone’s discography, go from almost nothing to being somewhat knowledgeable — along with millions of other people who are much younger and more passionate than I — in Swiftology.   

I listened. Predictably enjoyed Folklore and Evermore. Appreciated the expanding array of sounds and genres that started coming with Red. Didn’t *like* Reputation, although I liked the effort and theatricality. Overall, generally thought well of the songcraft, along with the consistency and adherence to beat and rhyme and a tight direct story, even if the individual stories didn’t move me and often trod the same ground. Was greatly amused (and could someone relate to!) the themes of Tortured Poets Society, and trying to do things for your own benefit instead of the weird demands of untold deeply online people who have a parasocial relationship with you. 

I studied the setlist so I knew which songs to focus on. Crucially, I didn’t watch any concert footage, so I could experience the “show” with open eyes.   

In other words, as I entered the Estadio da Luz on Saturday night, I was ready for it. 

The concert was great. Obviously. 

Let me clarify: the four hours of standing in the VIP section, waiting for the sun to go down, terrified of moving because it could mean giving up my space five feet from the fence, wanting water but not wanting too much water? That was not great.

Once the concert started? Yes. Very good. 

And part of that is the insane crowd: a crowd I knew would go insane, but when you spend four hours in what amounts to a garden party filled with families and teenage girls wearing bracelets and heart stickers, with a vibe that is more garden party than mosh pit, you let your guard down a bit. 

Then Swift appears. Sixty thousand people start screaming at a pitch I would describe as “overwhelming”, and has the effect of getting the adrenaline in the arena to a fever pitch pretty much immediately, with the screaming continuing at a heightened pitch more or less the entire night. 

The most impressive (or terrifying) part of the crowd dynamic was when Swift would go into one of her song-speak bridges. You know the ones, with sort of patter lyrics before the chorus, about being drunk in the back of the car, or about my ex-man who brought his new girlfriend. 

In the context of Swift singing solo, it’s an auditory reset and a chance to zoom out before the big finish. 

In the context of 60,000 people chanting “ONE FOR THE MONEY, TWO FOR THE SHOW, I NEVER WAS READY SO I WATCH YOU GO”? 

True, it takes away a little bit of the more vulnerable aspects of some of the songs. It also makes you think that this entire arena would go to war this very minute if she called for it. 

The other thing that struck me was the sheer volume and theatricality of the concert itself: full of set changes and costume breaks and props and choreography and risers and videos to a degree that feels like it should be reserved for the Super Bowl halftime show. There is stuff to watch at all times, and because it changes with each album it never gets old (except maybe the risers going up and down for the 34th time). 

More than anything else, that’s probably the innovation of this tour. Plenty of other artists have played their greatest hits while also focusing a section on their current album, but none have deliberately structured the experience to a scale and scope as this concert.

It’s a three-hour show that never seems exhausting because you never have a chance to get tired. It was a communal experience that gets replicated in city after city with an energy unique to this time. 

I cannot tell you that you should like Taylor Swift, or that you should reconsider her music if you don’t. But I can tell you that probably nobody left that concert feeling like they had wasted their money, that they all seemed like nice people, and that is good enough for me.  

And the moments that Swift came near my part of the stage, less than ten feet from me?

In a way similar to the Iguazu Falls, it felt like being in the middle of a supernatural force, all the lights and sound of the world’s biggest entertainer right there. With my brain barely able to hear itself among the screaming, it almost caused paralysis of what I should do: take pictures? Video? Vibe in the moment? 

I mostly opted for pictures. A concert is just three hours, but a moment can last forever.

 I could end this by being very dumb and say I’ll remember it all too well. Instead, I’ll actually remember most of what Swift said before launching into the Folklore/Evermore section.

“Before Folklore, most of the songs I wrote were sort of ‘Dear Diary,’” she said, before adding, in an interesting, almost defensive tone, “and those are great.”

“But then I got excited about writing songs about other characters and situations,” before launching into Betty, a country song from the perspective of a guy who cheated on Betty. 

Still, I wonder whether there was any intent of education in her story. 

After seven months of diving into this world for the sole purpose of enjoying a concert in Portugal, my only big takeaway is that Taylor Swift evokes what she evokes, at this immense level that defies the monoculture of this cultural era, is because of the Dear Diary aspect: that her story is my story, and that her expression of feelings gives license and endorsement to mine, that by listening and cheering I am validating my own journey. 

Not just music, but in books and podcasts and all sorts of media, the coin of the moment is memoir and identity and self-expression, and Swift encapsulates all of that for a large and passionate demographic and has been doing so for more than a decade. 

Did the crowd cheer when Swift said it was fun to write and reflect on other characters because they agreed with the message, the need to broaden one’s horizons and consider other perspectives?

Truth be told, they probably cheered because Betty is very good.