#947 Taylor Swift in SLC

Last night T and I went to see Taylor Swift in concert at the ESA. I like Taylor's music just fine. I really like her Speak Now CD. I thought every song was good. I've listened to Red a few times. The thing about Red is that T downloaded each individual song that was released prior to the CD's actual release, so there are about four songs that are just singles and don't fit in when I try to play the album on my iPod. I had to make a Red playlist so I could hear the songs in order. I'm old-school that way.

Taylor's show sold out here in SLC in the pre-sale period, so I wasn't sure if I would be able to get tickets. Fortunately, I was able to get a pair through my work. Bonus: the seats were in the suite so it was great.

The line to get into the arena was long and filled with wholesome-looking young ladies and girls, a far cry from the young women I saw coming into the rap show last week. Just an observation. The air inside the arena was crackling with energy. There were Taylor signs all over the place, lots of them with twinkling lights and assorted bling. It was kind of amazing. Our suite was also full of ladies and four guys.

Joel Crouse was the opening act. He is a cute country singer. He played about five songs and metioned Taylor's name at least ten times to get a rise out of the crowd. That worked pretty well for him. I thought he was pretty good. He had a cute smile and seemed to be pretty pleased with doing what he was doing and it's probably pretty cool to be on tour with Taylor Swift. He said if you sent him a tweet @JoelCrouse with #epic, he would follow you. I didn't try it, but I'm pretty sure a lot of people girls did. That's good social media marketing there.

The next artist to perform was Ed Sheeran. You might have heard Ed's Song The A Team or seen the video for Lego House (it has Rupert Grint in it). Ed came out with just his guitar. He looks like an unassuming red-headed guy, but can that guy sing and make some noise with that acoustic guitar. He had a loop machine that recorded the joyous sounds he made to create a full musical experience. He was awesome. He played for 40 minutes and I was hooked. He did a cover of the Nina Simone classic Feeling Good that was fantastic. He did a rap song that included the hook of Thrift Shop, thus making him the only person on stage all night to say the F word. (Also quite a difference from last week's rap show.) Here's a pic I took while Ed was singing The A Team. He asked everyone to "show their lights" which these days means light up your cell phones. Remember when we actually used to have lighters at concerts?

Ed mentioned Taylor's name a couple of times, but really, he was so good that he didn't need to do much more than perform to get people amped up. I really enjoyed his performance, and so did T. Immediately following the publishing of this post, I will be purchasing his CD from iTunes. Loved, loved, loved Ed Sheeran!

But make no mistake. This night belonged to Taylor Swift. Her opening song was State of Grace and she sang the first few lines from behind a red curtain. You could barely hear her above the screams and when the curtain dropped - forget it! It was LOUD in there. Girls can squeal at an amazingly high pitch. After the song, she was just standing there, listening to the adoration that was being showered upon her, a little smile on her lips. I leaned over to T and said, "It's good to be Taylor Swift right now." He agreed.

She looked beautiful. She was wearing a white lacy top and leather short shorts and red shoes and she looked great.

tswiftdaily.tumbler.com

 

This was just her first outfit. She did many costume changes. In fact, her show was quite the spectacle. She had a band with a drummer, keyboards, guitars and bass plus four back-up singers and 15 dancers. Some of the songs were full-on production numbers. During the second number, Holy Ground, there was drum barrels and strobe lights and delicious musical mayhem. It was great.

She talked quite a bit and the audience listened in, soaking it all up. There were around 14,000 people there and they hung on everything she said. The arena is large, but the show felt pretty intimate because the sound was good (surprising for the cavernous basketball arena) and she did a good job of introducing the songs and making the audience feel part of it all. I was impressed. She is a very confident performer and  there's a lot of power in a performer who gets her audience so involved in the show. The crowd was singing right along with every number. Taylor even commented one time that she could definitely hear us and that we were singing so loud that she was blown away. We loved her!

She did 17 songs. My favorites were the three or four that she did unaccompanied by anything or anyone other than her guitar. She did Our Song which is off her first album and it's such a cute song and she sang the hell out of it. So did that audience. During the acoustic set, she was joined by Ed Sheeran on the song they do together on the Red album called Everything Has Changed. Loved it.

She ended the show with a spectacle of circus-like proportions which included guys on stilts and ballerinas and Taylor dressed as a ring-master. The song was We Are Never Getting Back Together (which I hated when it first came out, but it grew on me over last summer and now I totally love it.) There was confetti and fireworks and dancing and cheering and singing and it was just over the top in the best possible way.

I thought the whole show was phenomenal, and so did T. I think he came away with a little bit of a crush on Ms. Swift - can't really blame him for that. He really wanted a t-shirt, so I got him one. I love concert t-shirts. (I didn't get one for myself.)

You can read the Salt Lake Tribune review of the show and see pics here.

Gotta go purchase the Ed Sheeran CD now! Talk to you soon :)