The Eras Tour

For a long time, people thought I was being sarcastic when I told them I loved Taylor Swift. When everything you say seems to be barbed or drip a tone so wry, it’s hard to be taken seriously. I love Taylor though. I think she’s an incredible talent and deserving of every success she deserved.

I was so desperate for Eras Tour tickets that I applied for the shows not just in London, but also in Paris, using my DuoLingo-level of French to steer me through the French TicketMaster site with the assistance of a VPN. I didn’t get tickets for shows, either at home or away, so the alternative, a £20 ticket to the front row of my local multiplex, seemed like a good deal.
As much as I consider myself to be a fan, it’s nothing on the level that E operates at. There’s a level of fandom I can only aspire to.

I booked front row tickets because social media was already awash with people dancing at the Stop Making Sense screenings and I figured my fellow Swifties were not to be outdone when it came to concert films. The film has a running time of close to 3 hours. E and I will happily knock back three cans on a train journey home from London so quick maths told us we would need eighteen cans of a combination of White Claw, margarita and mojito to make it through the show. That’s not a small amount of weight to secrete into a backpack and take into a cinema without detection. I know there’s nothing that says you can’t take your own food and drink in, but I am pretty sure Odeon draw the line at binge drinking amongst tweens.

I’m not the first or last person to tell you that the film is a triumph. It is perfectly shot, capturing the LA gig, has incredible set pieces, choreography and a vocal range that you can soar aboard. Taylor Swift is an absolute star and the Eras shows serve as an example of her prowess. I was genuinely slack-jawed at points. The hits keep coming, as do the costume changes, microphone changes (one per Era I think) and dramatic pauses for Swift to be adored.

As for our experience, there were rows of kids behind us, who were happily videoing the show as if the piracy ads of my formative years had never caught them (they hadn’t because they’re actual children). Some officious usher had to shut it down and I notice that several cinema chains in the UK have since offered up lists of acceptable behaviours at these shows. I can’t help but be reminded of the Gentleminions craze.

Halfway through(? (maybe, I was drunk), they got up and started dancing in the aisles. Soon, E and I got up and danced too. If it wasn’t dark, if I was in any danger of being spotted by anyone I knew, and if I wasn’t six seltzers to the wind, I don’t know if I would have been quite so into it, but that’s the charm. The Eras Shows are a spectacle, and if you’re not making one of yourself, then what are you doing?