Taylor Swift told fans inside a stadium in Arizona on Friday that she was “trying to keep it together” as she launched The Eras Tour.
In a 44-song concert that ran more than three hours, Swift delivered some of her biggest hits as well as a few surprises.
“Tonight, we’re going to be going on an adventure, one era at a time,” she told the crowd early in the show, which featured a costume and set change for each era. “We’re gonna be exploring the last 17 years of music that I’ve been lucky enough to make and you’ve been kind enough to care about.”
It is Swift’s first tour since 2018. She has since released four studio albums – Lover, folklore, evermore and Midnights – and a pair of re-recorded albums – Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version).
“I can’t even go into how much I missed you because there’s no way to verbalize it,” the singer said.
Kevin Mazur / Getty Images
On opening night, Swift opened the show with “Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince” and “Cruel Summer” and ended it with “Mastermind” and “Karma.” In the middle was “All Too Well (10 Minute Version).” The only track she performed from her self-titled debut was “Tim McGraw.”
“Throughout the night, she zigzagged between stretches of high-octane hits from older albums and mixed-bag selections from more recent ones — celebration with splashes of duty,” wrote Jon Caramanica in The New York Times.
“What this ambitious and energetic if sometimes scattershot performance underscored, however, was just how many pivots Swift has undertaken in her career, and how the accompanying risks can have wildly different consequences.”
taylor swift performing the bridge of cardigan live must be what paradise feels like pic.twitter.com/GnhF7g1WM4
— vittοria (@poeticardigan) March 18, 2023
ALSO TAYLOR SWIFT CHAIR DANCED RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME pic.twitter.com/LgkRGjlrk6
— sonya ⭐️ 4/29 Eras Tour (@TisTheDamnPhD) March 18, 2023
“Swift packed more than many TikTok speculators thought possible into one show, with almost no breaks and seemingly endless stamina,” reported Adrian Horton of The Guardian, who called the show “indisputably epic.”
She added: “There wasn’t time for much banter in between all this, though she made sure to cover the bases: gratitude for the crowd (‘I don’t know how to process all of this and how it’s making me feel’), cheeky crowd-pleaser lines (‘I love to explain to men how to apologize’), a nod at criticism of the woodsy evermore (‘an album that I absolutely love despite what some of y’all say on TikTok’).”
In The Atlantic, Spencer Kornhaber – who raved that Swift’s show was “unbelievable” – noted that some fans were exhausted. “It must be said that by the time the culminating Midnights era rolled around, the crowd—at least those who’d survived—had moved from excitement to awestruck submission,” he wrote. “Around me, seats where people had screamed at throat-scorching frequencies at the beginning of the night were now empty. Small children who’d been brought to the show were napping in the arms of their chaperones.”
Kevin Mazur / Getty Images
Waiss David Aramesh opined in Rolling Stone that Swift’s show is “a feat” and gushed: “It’s live music at its highest spectacle and greatest excess. And for most, without the catalog and showmanship of Swift, it’d be too much.
“But 17 years into her career, maybe we ought to stop being surprised when she finds a way to top her own efforts year after year … There’s something funny about a greatest hits concert for someone who’s never been more in her prime, isn’t there?
That was the show that just kept giving oh my GOD
— sonya ⭐️ 4/29 Eras Tour (@TisTheDamnPhD) March 18, 2023
On the other side of the U.S., country star Kelsea Ballerini stopped her show in New Jersey to ask if anyone in the crowd was “stalking” Swift’s concert. “I’m gonna stalk it after this but I have one question,” she said. “Is ‘Cruel Summer’ on the setlist? It is? Wow. That’s my Super Bowl, I gotta be honest.
“Alright, wow, that’s all I needed to know.”
@rileystevenson_ i am kelsea #kelseaballerini #taylorswift #theerastour #kelseaballeriniconcert ♬ original sound - rileystevenson_