After 43 days of waiting, “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” movie hit theaters on Friday, Oct. 13. The highly-anticipated movie shatters box office records for a concert movie, giving Swifties an up close and personal look at the historic U.S. performance of the Eras Tour.
The film features Taylor Swift performing songs from all 10 of her albums, from her debut country to her current pop era. It starts out with a drone shot of SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, slowly zooming into the sold out show which starts up the beginning of her “Lover” era. Taylor is revealed on stage with the help of her backup dancers, starting off the nearly three hour long movie with “Mrs. Americana & the Heartbreak Prince.” Of course, the crowd goes wild at the sight of Miss Swift herself. She performed five total songs off of her “Lover” album, including hits like “Cruel Summer” and of course, the emotion-filled title track, “Lover.”
Taylor Swift goes on to show off her impressively quick outfit changes from the rhinestone filled “Lover” bodysuit, to the gold Fearless tassel dress and a bejeweled guitar to perform the title track, “Fearless.” She happily dances and spins all around the stage. The former country singer goes on to perform her two highly-popularized songs from the album, “You Belong With Me” and “Love Story.” After the lovey performances, Taylor Swift throws up her iconic hand heart, in which every Swiftie in the audience does too as the “Fearless” era comes to an end.
Taylor Swift goes on to perform the woodsy “evermore” era, starting off with her biggest hit off the album, “willow.” Her new outfit is a long, flowy mustard yellow dress with a cloak to emphasize the mysticism of the album. Her backup dancers perform with a cloak as well with yellow orbs as seen in the “willow” music video. She performs three other songs from “evermore” including “champagne problems” and a lesser-known tune: “marjorie.” The last song is one of the most emotional, “tolerate it,” a song about a one-sided love. She puts on an unbelievable show with her backup dancer, Raphael Thomas III, in which they act as two lovers in a complicated relationship.
T-Swizzle’s transition from a wholesome “evermore” to a fiery “Reputation” was surprising to adjust to. She swiftly goes from the mustard yellow dress to a black body suit with red snakes seeming to wrap all around her, dressing similarly to her six backup dancers. Taylor Swift chooses four hit songs for this spicy era, starting with “…Ready For It?” most likely due to the powerful and well-known intro. “Reputation” had one of the most thought out performances within the whole tour, due to the stage lifts of both her and her backup dancers moving throughout the whole era. Tay goes to perform three other songs from the era including “Look What You Made Me Do.”
Next on the set list is “Speak Now,” the most recent re-recorded album she has gained the rights to, AKA “Taylor’s Version.” Taylor Swift yet again switches outfits to a beautiful light purple ball gown with a long train, looking like the princess she is to her fans. Though the only song she plays from this album is “Enchanted,” that doesn’t stop Swifties in the audience from singing their hearts out.
Next era on the setlist is “Red.” Taylor Swift comes out in a comfy, yet stylish outfit: a white oversized T-shirt with the iconic “A lot going on at the moment” written on it, along with sparkly black shorts and a black fedora. She starts off the era with “22” where she’s all smiles dancing around the stage. A tradition when performing the hit “22” is her giving the specialized fedora to a member in the audience, which she graciously gives Kobe Bryant’s daughter, Bianka Bryant, the iconic hat and a big hug. She performs three more songs from the country pop album including “We Are Never Getting Back Together.” After a quick outfit change into a sparkly red and black romper, she powerfully sings “I Knew You Were Trouble.” Lastly on the “Red” setlist, she chooses to sing her longest song released, “All Too Well (10 Minute Version),” giving Swifties a sparkly show with an all red coat and guitar.
Possibly the favorite era of Taylor Swift is “folklore,” she chose six songs from the 17 song album. This was the first of two albums she wrote during COVID-19, where she explored a storytelling technique in her music. She starts off with “the 1,” a somber song about lost love, as she shows off a white dress with a renaissance vibe to it. She goes on to sing “betty,” the beginning of her storytelling tale about a love triangle with her made up characters Betty, Augustine and James. “Betty” is a story from James’ perspective, admitting how badly he treated her when they were dating and how he regrets it all. Also a story from the infamous love triangle, she sings “august,” a song from Augustine’s perspective; a story about the summer she had with James. Of course, Taylor swift put on a performance for it all; she danced majestically to “august” and performed a scene with her backup dancers for “betty.”
“1989” is the next “Taylor’s Version” album she will release on Oct. 27. For this performance, T-Swizzle switches into a pinkish red crop top and skirt with gleaming sparkles from head to toe. She played two full and two half songs from “1989,” cutting “Style” and “Bad Blood” short due to the long length of the movie. Yet she did fully play her highest streamed song, “Blank Space,” and her third most streamed song, “Shake it Off.” She shook off any negativity with her 14 backup dancers, all while looking stylish.
A unique part of the Swift concert experience is her two surprise songs per show; she sings and performs one acoustic song and one piano song that are all different every show. Her surprise acoustic song was “Our Song” from her debut album, “Taylor Swift,” in which she performed with a toothy grin looking out at the audience from the front of the stage. Her piano surprise song was “You’re On Your Own, Kid” from her “Midnights” album. The slow-paced song took Swifties on a rollercoaster ride of emotions, as the song goes in depth of Taylor Swift’s deepest struggles and hardships in her life, though she received so much support from Swifties.
The final era of the film is her most recent, released a little less than a year ago, “Midnights.” She performed a whopping seven songs from the record breaking album, not just performing her biggest hits like “Anti-Hero” and “Karma,” but lesser known songs like “Midnight Rain” and “Mastermind.” She switched from her dark red and flowy dress, to her navy bejeweled bodysuit with tassels. The outfit is a mix between the “Fearless” dress and the “Lover” bodysuit. She goes to put on a spectacular show.
Of course, it’s not a Taylor Swift release without a little bit of controversy. Because of the long length of the concert, Taylor Swift had to cut a couple songs from the movie including hits like “cardigan” from “folklore” and “Wildest Dreams” from “1989,” which left Swifties not so enchanted. Yet, “The Eras Tour” movie gave Swifties an experience of a lifetime, making it seem as if they were actually at the three and a half hour long concert. All together, “The Eras Tour” movie was worth the 43 days of waiting with a solid 4 out of 5 stars.
