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Capping off 2023 by streaming “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” I viewed forty-four of her hits in a three-hour documentary that offered first-timers and returning fans the perfect holiday opportunity to enjoy this concert experience.
This blockbuster earned $123.5 million in its October debut and then $261.6 million globally in 2024, surpassing “Michael Jackson’s This is It.”
Swift was also Time’s 2023 Person of the Year, as the top streaming artist on Apple Music and Spotify, achieving a billionaire status.
The film opened to a huge clock that starts at thirteen seconds (her favorite number). At zero, Swift acknowledged her four-year touring hiatus with the lyrics “It’s been a long time coming. . .” from the “Lover” album. She hyped the crowd with “Cruel Summer,” her tenth Billboard Hot 100 topper. I screamed the song’s bridge along with the live audience until blasts of smoke marked the beginning of her next verse. Swift saved my voice by easing into softer acoustics with “Lover,” after performing “The Man” and “You Need to Calm Down.”
Golden sparks streaming down the screen brought me back from the intimate atmosphere into the “Fearless” era. Swift twirled and skipped in a golden-tasseled dress, belting out “Fearless,” “You Belong with Me,” and “Love Story,” the very songs that hooked me into becoming a Swiftie. Quoting Swift’s “Fearless” lyrics, I, too, didn’t “know how it gets better than this.”
But she continued to surprise me with “Evermore,” a more introspective era. “Willow” took place in the backdrop of a dark forest, and I swayed along like the tree Swift describes.
Modern skyscrapers replaced her forest cabin as Swift transitioned into “1989,” the album named after her birth year. She reproduced the classics that launched her to fame: “Style,” “Blank Space,” “Shake It Off,” and “Bad Blood.”
Swift literally dived into her 2022 album, “Midnights,” leaping into a stage opening with a splash. An outfit change and chair dance broke up the last seven songs of Swift’s performance, but the film wasn’t over yet.
After a confetti curtain call, three exclusive additions ended the extended concert film. “Long Live” from “Speak Now” struck me as the perfect ending, paying homage to “all the magic we made” during the concert.
Many songs in the tour were unfamiliar to me, but it surpassed anything in my “Wildest Dreams.”
