Taylor Swift Performs First Australian Show For The Eras Tour In Melbourne

Reporting a first-hand account of the Taylor Swift phenomenon was not something I was expecting but when I was invited to attend the first Australian show of The Eras Tour my interests piqued. This will truly be the biggest music event in Australia for 2024. The Eras Tour is breaking records all over the world. It is major news.

It was also the biggest music event ever for Taylor Swift. “This is the biggest show that we’ve done on any tour. I have to be honest with you about something. I seem like I’m losing my mind,” she told the audience on the first night of her three sold out Melbourne shows.

The adulation this audience had for Taylor can be compared to Beatlemania. It was a frenzy. Ed Sheeran played to more people per night (109,000) because he had a different stage configuration allowing more people to attend. However, Ed’s fans were more demure, older and more evenly skewed male/female. Taylor attracts a predominately young and female audience who border on the obsessive. The excitement was at fever pitch before the show began. This show is dynamic.

When the two-minute countdown started the crowd began screaming drowning out Taylor’s entrance. This three-and-a-half-hour epic of a show titled The Eras Tour clusters tracks from nine of her ten albums. Her debut ‘Taylor Swift’ (2006) gets an occasional look-in in the ‘Surprise Songs’ towards the end but not tonight. The album clusters are also not in chronological order. It goes ‘Lover’ (2019), ‘Fearless’ (2008), ‘Evermore’ (2020), ‘Reputation’ (2017), ‘Speak Now’ (2010), ‘Red’ (2012), ‘Folklore’ (2020), ‘1989’ (2014) and ‘Midnights’ (2022). Each album era features a visual background representative of the artwork allowing the audience to travel to each time. ‘Fearless’ features the Gold, ‘Reputation’ more rock, ‘Folklore’ and ‘Evermore’ the outdoor, nature look. Each fan is also given a wristband which changes colour and flashes remotely to compliment the ever-changing set.

Swift fans love being dropped breadcrumbs. Early in the show Taylor alludes that a titbit from the upcoming album ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ is on the way and then during the surprise set announces the album will feature a song titled ‘The Bolter’. It remains to be seen if she will drop a different title at each of her seven Australian shows. While Taylor didn’t perform ‘The Bolter’ she did have one huge surprise in the first-ever performance of the 2023 standalone track ‘You’re Losing Me’.

The fans, the Swifties as they call themselves, are their own club. Their “secret handshake” is the sharing of handmade bracelets. They walked in with their arms covered in bracelets and then proceeded to swap like it is Trick or Treat on Halloween.

Last night was the 15th time Taylor Swift has played in Melbourne after previous tours in 2018, 2015, 2013, 2012, 2010 and 2009. It is incredible to think that Taylor Swift’s first ever Melbourne shows on 9 and 10 March 2009 were at the small Melbourne club Billboard which has a capacity of around 1000. She is playing to 300 times that in Melbourne alone on this tour. A year later she updated to the 14,000 capacity Rod Laver Arena for the Fearless (2010) and then Speak Now World Tour (2012) before going next level to the arenas Etihad (now Marvel) Stadium in 2013, AAMI Park (2015) and back to Marvel (2018) to now the crown jewel of stadiums in Australia, the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

“I’m fully starstruck by the fact so many people wanted to hang out with us on a Friday night in Melbourne,” she said. “Oh, Melbourne, look at you. Every time I’m sad, I’m going to think about this.”

Seven of the 13 tracks from Taylor’s most recent album ‘Midnights’ ends the show and the trek home begins for just shy of 100,000 crowd.

You’ll see lots of negative posts about Taylor Swift in coming days from people who weren’t there. Even the opinion of people like me who were there don’t matter. The only people who matter are the fans. Taylor Swift played to them and them only. No-one else matters.
Tens of millions of kids have discovered a love of music via the Taylor Swift gateway. How that evolves is up to them but the point is she is a gateway to a love of music for millions. With all that is divisive in the world today, it is wonderful to have someone like Taylor Swift who unites.

Taylor Swift’s most recent show in Melbourne from 17 February 2024

Lover
Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince
Cruel Summer
The Man
You Need to Calm Down
Lover
The Archer

Fearless
Fearless
You Belong With Me
Love Story

evermore
’tis the damn season
willow
marjorie
champagne problems
tolerate it

reputation
…Ready for It?
Delicate
Don’t Blame Me
Look What You Made Me Do

Speak Now
Enchanted
Long Live

Red
Red – Intro
22
We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together
I Knew You Were Trouble
All Too Well

folklore
seven
the 1
betty
the last great american dynasty
august
illicit affairs
my tears ricochet
cardigan

1989
Style
Blank Space
Shake It Off
Wildest Dreams
Bad Blood

Surprise Songs
Red
You’re Losing Me (new song)

Midnights
Lavender Haze
Anti‐Hero
Midnight Rain
Vigilante Shit
Bejeweled
Mastermind
Karma

The remaining Australian dates of Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour are tonight 17 and tomorrow 18 February in Melbourne and 23, 24, 25 and 26 February in Sydney, all with special guest artist, Sabrina Carpenter.

https://www.frontiertouring.com/taylorswift

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Tagged as: 10s, 20s, 60s, MCG, Melbourne, Melbourne Cricket Ground, pop, review, Taylor Swift, The Beatles, The Eras Tour, UK, USA