Swift reaction Free Press panel dissects singer’s Eras Tour concert movie By: Nadya Pankiw, Gabrielle Piché, Eva Wasney and Jen Zoratti Posted: 4:02 PM CDT Monday, Oct. 16, 2023

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This article was published 16/10/2023 (1029 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour has been selling out stadiums and arenas around the world. Now, the 12-time Grammy Award winner’s show has landed in Winnipeg — sort of.

The sold-out concert is playing at a theatre near you.

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is a feature-length film compilation of Swift’s shows at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., last August. The film officially debuted in theatres Oct. 13 and has already surpassed $100 million in advance ticket sales worldwide.

Concert — er — moviegoers, can experience the iconic tour (minus seven songs cut for production) in 2 hours and 49 minutes. Friendship-bracelet exchanges, singalongs and dancing are encouraged.

Swift’s upcoming six Canadian tour dates for the Eras Tour are slated for November 2024 in Toronto.

As the film is likely the closest Swift will be to Winnipeg since her Red Tour in 2013, the Free Press’s Nadya Pankiw, Gabrielle Piché, Eva Wasney and Jen Zoratti headed to the theatre to take in 17 years of Swift’s discography.

Eva Wasney: We should probably start by talking about our Taylor Swift associations and how big of a fan everyone is.

Nadya Pankiw: I became a Taylor Swift fan in fifth grade. I had a friend who recommended her debut album to me. I begged for it and was eventually gifted it from my family and we would listen to it in the car as often as I could convince them to play it.

I’ve kept up with her career off and on, but fell back in love with her during the pandemic. It was all Taylor all the time and I haven’t been able to turn her off.

Jen Zoratti: For a long time, I was pretty Taylor Swift agnostic. I really had to get into her for work.

Before I was on staff at the Free Press, I was reviewing concerts freelance and they asked me to review her stadium show that was part of the Red Tour — a show I gave 3 1/2 stars to, which seems so harsh because I remember enjoying it. But then I really loved 1989 and Midnights. So I’d say I’m a casual fan, but I think she’s really interesting as a cultural figure.

Gabrielle Piché: I love Taylor Swift. I didn’t start with her debut album. I came in around the Fearless era and she’s definitely my favourite artist. Period.

EW: Some of my best friends are Swifties. But like Jen used to be, I’m pretty agnostic… I really like her songwriting, but the whole movement hasn’t really grabbed me. I feel like it would take so much work for me to get into it in a way that was fan-worthy because it goes so deep for so many people. There’s this level of Taylor fandom that is kind of intimidating from the outside looking in.

JZ: It’s fascinating you say that, Eva, because, yes, there is this echelon of superfan, and this whole Eras Tour is really about democratizing the fandom. Everyone’s included, everyone gets a friendship bracelet.

This tour will never get anywhere closer to Winnipeg than Minneapolis, so this movie is a way for those two kids who were sitting in front of us to live their best lives for three hours for $20. They knew every word and were enjoying themselves so unself-consciously.

GP: I think when you have that many fans and that many people listening to your music, you’re going to get people who are just casual listeners all the way to the people who, for them, this artist is their life.

JZ: At the same time, as an artist, when do you reach that tipping point where you basically become Starbucks or McDonald’s, where you’re this huge brand that’s so ubiquitous? Do you risk no longer becoming anyone’s favourite artist if you’re everybody’s favourite?

EW: I’d say Taylor is already in danger of that, but this tour and her whole mystique seem to revolve around her respect for her fans… During the concert, she’s paying a lot of attention to the people in the stands, talking directly to them in a way that feels genuine — it’s not the usual between-song banter you often hear from artists.

JZ: Nadya, as someone who’s seen the show, how scripted was it?

NP: A lot of it was familiar. From the introduction to how she was talking about the Folklore album, by the end of her U.S. tour I think she’s probably figured out what she wanted to say. But with her delivery, she’s able to come off as very genuine and candid.

JZ: That’s what fascinates me about her. Compared to the Red Tour, she’s more of a mature performer, she’s relaxed on seeking hardcore validation from the crowd, but you never know what’s completely real. Who is she? Who is Taylor Swift?

NP: I don’t think we’ll ever know. The tabloids have told you for so long who Taylor Swift is and who she’s dating and why that’s important. She had her Reputation era to try and reclaim that identity and do what she wants. But maybe part of that is also distancing herself from the fallout of public criticism.

JZ: I love that she’s in her “don’t give a f—-” era now. The Reputation era was so self-conscious. You could tell that she was trying to be tough and not care, but all I saw was a woman who cared very much…

This is such a small vain detail, but there’s no way she would let her bangs get that messy and sweaty 10 years ago.

EW: I loved the hair progression throughout the show, from straight to her natural waves coming through. I do want to know what brand of lipstick she uses, because that didn’t budge. But those are some of the details you notice in the movie that you might not see from the crowd.

It’s such a big production but the level of detail is insane — like, all of the mic stands are co-ordinated with each of her musical eras.

JZ: I don’t hate seeing music in this format for that reason. You don’t have a bad sightline; you can see all of the details.

NP: When I attended the live show, I was on the floor and my perspective was so different. So watching this film it was refreshing to see the projections that are on the stage. And for a lot of the concert, she’s further to the back of the stage or at mid-stage and she’s as big as an ant. So, it’s nice to fill in the pieces of what you missed.

GP: I loved all the little callbacks she had from her other concerts, like the twirl from Fearless.

EW: Gabby, you have tickets to the Toronto show: how do you feel after watching that?

GP: Extra-excited. Because I think of the movie as a movie. It’s not a concert experience, it’s not the full spectacle.

NP: As I was sitting there and watching I thought to myself: this movie is the concert, but the concert is not the movie for that reason. Because the experience you have is going into a stadium with 60,000 people and all of these people are united by Taylor Swift. They’re exchanging friendship bracelets, they’ve all dressed up and are so happy to be in that place.

The energy, the magnitude of that is something that just can’t be captured on film. Even just the sound. The speakers are so much louder at the concert and you feel the vibrations and the fireworks. You’re in it.

EW: I thought the sound in the theatre was pretty muted, honestly.

JZ: If you’re going to see it, maybe see it in IMAX so you can get closer to that experience.

EW: The filmmaker had to cut the setlist down a bit. Did she play everyone’s favourite songs?

NP: I was pleasantly surprised with her songs for the acoustic set. Each concert date gets different surprise songs, and I loved that she went back to Our Song off her first album for the movie, which is her talking about this relationship where they’re attached at the hip, to then singing You’re on Your Own Kid (from her 2022 album). I see a parallel there — it represents like a decade of growth in her music.

GP: She didn’t include, ME!, which is maybe one of her most ripped-on songs, and they didn’t show Cardigan, which is one of her most popular songs on that album.

JZ: I was also a bit surprised at what was included. There was some cringey, cheesy Taylor Swift in there, like Shake it Off.

EW: That’s the song I’m most familiar with! I feel like that song is a must because it was a popular part of a specific era and she’s got to acknowledge that.

JZ: I do wish they cut to the audience more in the film, specifically to the girls and women in the crowd, because it’s a journey we all go on, not as publicly as she does, but we all have those eras we want to stay in touch with or forget. It’s about how to move through your life as a woman and I think the tour has really connected on that level, but the camera rarely left her face.

EW: I did enjoy that her backup dancers got a little bit more of the spotlight, because they’re all very charismatic.

GP: Every second is choreographed to a T; how do you remember all of that? It’s so impressive that they’re doing this two or three nights a week, back-to-back. It’s like running a marathon.

I do think this tour is going to be one that people will refer back to decades later. This is like a real cultural moment.

EW: It seems like that’s happening in real time too. The fact that this film is available while the tour is still happening speaks to how big a cultural moment it currently is and how wild people are about it.

JZ: And if you’re cynical: capitalism. She’s making money fist over fist. But, to that point, I think for a really long time, teenage girls were dismissed as being a huge economic driver for music.

There would be no Taylor Swift without the legions of Swifties, mostly girls and women, who are putting her on the stage and on the screen. This is what girls can do.

NP: Do you think Taylor Swift has redefined the industry standard? Does her putting on a concert like this mean that other artists need to step up to that level or does this exist in its own unique bubble?

JZ: I think there’s a lot of hype and there’s a lot of very shrewd marketing around it, but I don’t think it’s necessarily of a higher calibre than other major stadium shows.

EW: While I was watching, I was comparing it to the 50 Cent show in Winnipeg that I recently reviewed, which was highly produced and tightly cued. Every single moment is thought out and planned and that’s just what you get in an arena show now. It’s good and it’s bad, because it would be nice if there was some leeway for authenticity to happen at shows.

Jen, I did want to ask you: how many stars would you give this Taylor Swift concert?

JZ: If I was experiencing it as a concert, it would probably get close to five. As a concert film, I’d say four; some of the editing choices were a bit odd.

GP: I’m still biased. Twenty out of 10.

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is playing at Cineplex and Landmark theatres in Winnipeg.