Culture | Music There are not many artists out there capable of playing Wembley Stadium – and with her lengthy run of Eras Tour dates this summer at the 90,000 capacity venue, Taylor Swift will become the first ever solo artist to sell it out eight times over. On Friday night the record-breaking artist kicked off her historic residency with a celebratory blaze through her greatest hits. “What an absolute honour it is to say these words: London, welcome to the Eras Tour,” she declared.
Already the highest grossing concert tour in history, the Eras Tour pays tribute to Swift’s vast discography, spanning from 2007’s Speak Now (her self-titled 2006 debut is the only record absent from the setlist) to this year’s underwhelming The Tortured Poet’s Department , making stops for all of the hits along the way. Divided up into orderly sections, split neatly by album, it raced between the folksy lockdown records Folklore and Evermore – both produced by The National ’s Aaron Dessner – to the feel-good synth-pop of her breakthrough album 1989, Fearless’ fist-clenching romanticism, and the choppier, dubstep influenced standouts from Red. The rigid structure gave the show the feeling of a journey through time, but being backloaded with her newest material meant that it lost momentum slightly towards the end.
Throughout the epic, three and a half hour show, Swift was a charismatic presence, effortlessly conjuring up intimacy despite the sheer enormity of her surrounding.
