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Review & setlist: Taylor Swift’s ‘Eras Tour’ arrives at Gillette Stadium
At Gillette Stadium, Taylor Swift brought a flawless performance on Friday.
Before embarking on a marathon of a concert at Gillette Stadium on Friday, Taylor Swift told the crowd just what awaited them that evening. “We’re gonna go on a grand adventure together, through 17 years of music that I’ve been lucky enough to make,” she said.
As fans cheered from every corner of the venue, the legendary pop star beamed. At “The Eras Tour,” held in what she named “Foxy Foxborough,” she would lead them through a setlist of 45 songs, both famously confessional or inspired by her own invention.
“These songs may have started out being about something that happened to me —something that I felt, in my life, or maybe an imaginary character that I invented felt,” Swift said. “But here’s my goal at the end of the night: when you think of these songs, they’re gonna be about us.”
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In Swift’s spectacular juggernaut of a tour, she takes her audience on a musical journey across the eras of her career, ushering them through the wistful melodies of “Fearless,” the defiance of “Reputation,” and the earnest joys of “Lover.” Always, Swift has been known for her ability to deftly capture the feelings of a relationship through her songwriting, but with each album, she has continued to evolve, and her identity has changed. The concert showcases every moment along this odyssey, with Swift choosing to perform songs from every one of her albums, in unpredictable order. Diving into trap doors, sashaying across the stage in bejeweled ball gowns, and commanding the show with a single glance, Swift carries the “Eras Tour” with virtuosity and stamina. Perhaps what the show does best is that it reinforces her relationship to memory: something she has long been concerned with. Leading us from one period to another, Swift not only guides us down memory lane, but shows how she has reinvented herself across time.
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For many fans, getting to this concert has been something of a journey, as well. The Ticketmaster fiasco that began last fall made it difficult for many to secure tickets, with website traffic, delays, and outages happening, as well as a canceled general sale. But the fans who managed to make it to Gillette Stadium showed up in style, ready for a show.
Guest stars Gayle and Phoebe Bridgers opened the Friday show and will play at the Saturday concert, as well. Bridgers and Gracie Abrams will take to the stage on Sunday. Singer-songwriter Gayle’s music, which blends pop styles together with rock, alternative, and R&B, was full of energy. The 18-year-old from Texas sang “Everybody Hates Me” as an introduction. Known for songs like post-breakup anthem “abcdefu,” she also performed hits such as “ALEX” and a cover of Alanis Morisette’s “You Oughta Know.” Bridgers, an indie folk musician with melancholy lyrics and airy vocals, showcased lilting melodies in “Motion Sickness” and “Garden Song.” Before “Chinese Satellite,” she ironically dedicated the song to someone who picketed a past show. Later in the evening, she would join Swift to sing “Nothing New,” a song about anxieties over the ephemeral nature of fame.
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Swift first takes us back in time to the “Lover” era, clad in an iridescent Versace bodysuit with studded boots and strutting across a stage lit by a rosy glow. Before the song “The Man,” a criticism of patriarchal society, she told the crowd that it was her eleventh show at Gillette, flexing an arm and exclaiming, “You’re making me feel so excellent right now!” Singing the title track from the album, she performed in front of a giant dollhouse that fans will recognize from the song’s music video. Her ballad “The Archer” was an intimate recognition of her own vulnerabilities.
For her next destination, Swift brought us to “Fearless,” quipping to the audience, “Are you ready to go back to high school with me?” Some of her most famous tracks, like “You Belong With Me” and “Love Story,” made popular during her teenage years, still had their exuberance and heartfelt sincerity. With the exploration of “Evermore,” the stage turned into a giant forest, at one point featuring a piano covered in moss. Here, Swift turned to more introspective pieces, like “Willow” and “Marjorie,” in remembrance of her late grandmother.
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“Why that means so much to me, and why my mom is crying somewhere in the stadium — that song Majorie is a song I wrote about my grandmother Marjorie who passed away when I was 13,” Swift said. She added, “She was a singer.”
Traveling with us to “Reputation,” Swift stepped out in an asymmetrical black and red bodysuit with a snake pattern, invoking the rebellious energy of her sixth album. Performing “Look What You Made Me Do” with a crew of dancers, Swift challenged the images and personas that the public had long associated with her. In stark contrast, she donned a sparkling ball gown, shrouded in purple lighting, to sing one song from “Speak Now,” recalling love at first sight in “Enchanted.” To capture the feeling of being young and happily lost during the “Red” era, Swift resurrected tracks such as “22,” “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” and “I Knew You Were Trouble.” She explained that the album is one — among several — that she’s gotten to release twice now.
“Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve had this long term goal and dream of one day owning my work, my music,” Swift said. “And so, a few years ago, I decided to completely re-record and re-release all of my six albums [originally with Big Machine Records].”
A powerful moment descended over the audience as Swift performed the track “All Too Well,” a song that originally debuted on her “Red” album. The song, speculated to having been about a relationship with actor Jake Gyllenhaal, was re-released in 2021 as a 10-minute ballad, which Swift made into a short film, starring Sadie Sink and Dylan O’Brien. As Swift played guitar, clad in a glittering red overcoat, she recounted the story of lost romance with both nostalgia and scathing specificity.
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“Folklore,” an album that came out during the pandemic, took us to the scene of a woodland cabin, as Swift ventured into more complex storytelling, with songs like “Betty,” “Illicit Affairs,” and “Cardigan.” Fans in the audience swayed to the music of her ballads, joined in repeating Swift’s lyrics along with her. Transitioning into “1989,” the first time that the singer fully embraced pop, the show took an upbeat turn, as the singer seized the spotlight with “Blank Space,” “Shake It Off,” and “Wildest Dreams.”
Following the pyrotechnics of “Bad Blood,” Swift brought out the act that everyone had been waiting for: the two surprise songs. The first one was an acoustic version of “Should’ve Said No,” from her debut album “Taylor Swift.” Playing the guitar, she intimately revived a song about betrayal with immediacy and earnestness. The second song, “Better Man,” performed on the piano, was about disappointment in a relationship.
“There was a song that I wrote originally for the Red album. It just narrowly, narrowly didn’t make the cut. And then years later, a band that I love so much, Little Big Town, reached out to us,” Swift said. They were recording their own album and wondered if Swift had something right for them. “Immediately, I knew.”
Fresh in fans’ minds was Swift’s recent breakup with actor Joe Alwyn, whom she was reported as having split from in early April, after six years together. While the singer appeared to be performing at the top of her game on Friday night, the song “Champagne Problems,” about the turning away of a marriage proposal, was especially poignant. A sense of awe and wonder overtook the audience, as they took in the moment with solemnity. Swift is currently rumored to be dating Matty Healy, lead singer and guitarist from British band The 1975.
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Swift’s dynamic performance transported audience members, from the effervescence and joy of first romance to the complexities and sorrows of her more recent years. The spark of electronic light from audience members’ bracelets lit up the stadium like an ocean of stars, as the performer dazzled with her original songs. As she narrated each tale, giving shape to different periods in her life as an artist, she took us on a journey. An era is never completely over, it seems. For a storyteller like Swift, memories live on and can even be revisited, through a lyric or the melody of a song. At this show, she brought moments in time fully into the present, while illuminating her own perspective. These things have meaning, she asserts, and more than that, they’re gloriously alive.
The evening concluded with Swift’s most recent album, “Midnights,” for which she put on an Oscar De La Renta fur coat. As she shifted from “Anti-Hero,” to “Lavender Haze,” to a Cabaret-esque chair dance routine in “Vigilante Sh–t,” Swift once again proved that she can not be defined or boxed into one identity. The night was flawless. No one let it go.
Setlist:
Gayle’s setlist
“Everybody Hates Me,” “Sleeping with My Friends,” “ALEX,” “Don’t Call Me Pretty,” “You Oughta Know” (cover), “Luv Starved,” “Snow Angels,” “abcdefu”
Phoebe Bridgers’ setlist
“Motion Sickness,” “DVD Menu,” “Garden Song,” “Kyoto,” “Scott Street,” “Moon Song,” “Chinese Satellite,” “Graceland Too,” “I Know the End”
Taylor Swift’s setlist:
1. “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince”
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2. “Cruel Summer”
3. “The Man”
4. “You Need to Calm Down”
5. “Lover”
6. “The Archer”
7. “Fearless”
8. “You Belong With Me”
9. “Love Story
10. “‘Tis the Damn Season”
11. “Willow”
12. “Marjorie”
13. “Champagne Problems”
14. “Tolerate It”
15. “…Ready For It?”
16. “Delicate”
17. “Don’t Blame Me”
18. “Look What You Made Me Do”
19. “Enchanted”
20. “22″
21. “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”
22. “I Knew You Were Trouble”
23. “Nothing New” (with Phoebe Bridgers)
24. “All Too Well” (10-minute version)
25. “The 1″
26. “Betty”
27. “The Last Great American Dynasty”
28. “August”
29. “Illicit Affairs”
30. “My Tears Ricochet”
31. “Cardigan”
32. “Style”
33. “Blank Space”
34. “Shake it Off”
35. “Wildest Dreams”
36. “Bad Blood”
37. “Should’ve Said No” (surprise)
38. “Better Man” (surprise)
39. “Lavender Haze”
40. “Anti-Hero”
41. “Midnight Rain”
42. “Vigilante S—”
43.. “Bejeweled”
44. “Mastermind”
45. “Karma”
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