P.S Scroll down for a gallery of photos from the concert!
This truly was the tour of a lifetime. Three years after
she’d last performed in the UK, and four since I’d seen her (no proper London
dates on the 1989 Tour, grr!), I was going to see Taylor Swift perform at
Wembley Stadium as part of the reputation Tour.
The trains being their usual reliable selves, I arrived 10
minutes before the show was due to start, but thankfully Wembley is a very
efficient venue and it was simply a case of scanning my ticket through some
intelligent turnstiles, pick up a lightup bracelet handed out to all attendees,
and hurry to my seat. Easy.
If you’ve never been to Wembley before, let me be the first
to tell you that it is massive. I picked the best seats I was comfortable
paying for, but even being in level one, I was miles away from the stage and
the performers appeared possibly even smaller than ants to me.
Right on time at 6:45pm, with the sun shining overhead,
Charli XCX bounced on stage in a pink PVC raincoat contraption. I was really
happy with the opening acts for the reputation tour – as Charli rightly said,
“three badass women sharing the stage on one night.”
I found Charli’s choice of opening song interesting as she
launched into perhaps her most famous song Boom
Clap, made popular as part of the Fault In Our Stars movie soundtrack.
However, in retrospect, a great way to get those who maybe didn’t know Charli
herself involved, as you’d definitely know the song.
There’s a lot of space to use in such a large arena, so
Charli used exaggerated movement throughout her set, running across the stage
as she belted out songs like I Love It,
Break The Rules and Unlock It. I
was enjoying the show, but unfortunately felt that she wasn’t getting the
reception she deserved as fans continued to mill around the stadium and chat.
She had a pretty decent duration for her set, with plenty of
catchy songs like the gamified sounding Boys,
new dance track 5 in the Morning and
everyone’s favourite Fancy, which I
found interesting given half of the track is sung by Iggy Azalea. Good set.
The reception for second opening act Camila Cabello was
arguably warmer, although by this point the stadium had also filled up more.
Her set began the same way as it did at her O2 Academy Brixton show (the review
of which you can read here) with the large LED screen projecting a video of her
eyes and the countdown before they opened and she came on stage to the initial
chords of Never Be The Same.
Unfortunately for us at the back, the LED screens weren’t
actually that big so even when they were projecting images of the ant-people on
stage, it didn’t make them much easier to see. For this reason, I was glad to
have seen Camila perform in a more intimate setting a few weeks ago!
Camila’s performance was full of slick choreography and
stunning vocals on the likes of She Loves
Control, Inside Out and personal
favourite Bad Things. She slowed the
set down with a touching performance of Consequences,
showing that all that was needed to fill the arena was a piano and lilting
vocals. She took this one step further with In
The Dark in which the music was cut and it was only her voice which could
be heard.
She was a great example for this edgier era of Taylor Swift
with sultry lyrics like the clever start of Into
It: “I’m not a psychic, but I see myself all over you.” I was sure there
were many Taylor fans in the audience like me who had grown up with Taylor’s
music, and appreciated these edgier opening acts rather than the sickly sweet
pop stars I’m sure she could have had. Unsurprisingly, Camila finished her set
with the irrevocably catchy Havana which
certainly left the crowd wanting more.
The whole production of the night was well done, with only fifteen minutes between each act, giving enough time to leave your set to grab a drink but not enough to get bored. This was made even better by Taylor’s set being prefaced by footage from the ‘Secret Sessions’ where she invited fans to her various properties to hear reputation before it was officially released, as well as behind the scenes footage from the Look What You Made Me Do video.
I mean, is there even any point in me reviewing Taylor’s
set? You already know it was great! Alas, we began with voiceovers from news
sources talking about Taylor’s bad reputation, the alleged grudges she holds,
failed relationships and getting to the top in a shady manner. Then ‘are you
ready for it?’ You bet we were! The star strutted onto the stage to sing Ready For It dressed in a long sleeved
leotard that probably costs more than my entire house, and a pair of what
looked like Louboutin knee high boots which almost certainly do.
Fireworks shot off the top of the stadium as she continued
with I Did Something Bad and her
backing dancers lifted her up on their shoulders. It was at this point that she
greeted the crowd with genuine gratitude that out of all of the things we could
be doing in London on a Friday night (with a subtle nod to the fact that she
spends a lot of time here with her British boyfriend) that we had chosen to
spend it at the reputation tour. As if there was any other option!
She continued with the obligatory ‘you all look so beautiful
tonight!’ which turned out to be a clever segue as she searched for a word that
meant even more than beautiful. Could it be Gorgeous?
I think so, and even her world famous cats Olivia and Meredith made a brief
appearance on the screen as she sang “guess I’ll just stumble on home to my
cats, alone, unless you want to come along”
It wasn’t just reputation
tracks that we got to hear throughout the concert, but also tracks from
1989 including Style and even some
proper throwbacks to the Fearless era with Love
Story and You Belong With Me which
I greatly appreciated as they reminded us all of a very different Taylor Swift
of yesterday.
We were swiftly brought back to the present era with snakes
galore for Look What You Made Me Do, the
staging of which included a literal tilted stage and a huge snake rising from
behind the stage. I also appreciated that Taylor also had a snake microphone
and one of many costume changes into a snazzy black and gold zipped dress. It’s
the little things, you know?
We moved onto End Game
and I’m sure I wasn’t the only in the stadium who was wondering if Ed
Sheeran would make an appearance. Alas not, and Taylor made the most of the
elaborate staging as she continued on with King
Of My Heart as male dancers chased her onto the tilted stage, complete with
massive drums rolled onto the stage.
Somehow in the midst of all of this, Taylor had time for
another costume change, and she returned to the stage in a pretty rainbow dress
for one of the coolest and most Taylor Swift-like moments of the concert –
hopping into a flying cage to belt out Delicate
as she soared over the crowd. She explained too that one of the benefits of
playing stadiums in the summer was the transition from light to dark,
explaining this as the purpose of all light up bracelets so she could see us
all dancing throughout the concert. How sweet.
Her flying chariot landed her on one of the side stages in
the middle of the floor, and huge rainbow snakes rose from the ground as she
was joined on stage by Charli XCX and Camila for Shake It Off. If everyone in the stadium wasn’t dancing full pelt
at this point, I’ll be surprised, and more fireworks lit off above us.
Again, I missed a seamless costume change which can only
have happened whilst she was on stage as all of a sudden she was wearing a
black leotard topped with a beautiful bedazzled reputation jacket which I
really hoped they would have sold as merch, but undoubtedly cost about five million
dollars, so… She produced a guitar for an acoustic rendition of Dancing With Our Hands Tied and a
special performance of a song she had not yet performed live, So It Goes which I would have been
disappointed not to have heard on the tour, so was pleased with that.
She then made a decision which in her position I never would
have, to walk through the crowd across the stadium. In spite of fans left,
right and centre grabbing at her arms, her smile didn’t fade and she made it to
the other mini stage unharmed. Over here, she sang the sassy Blank Space which was her first foray in
talking about her reputation before she wrote a whole album about it. We loved it.
Someone somewhere must have been producing costume pieces
from behind the floor or something as she slipped on a dress for the sultry Dress with lyrics like “I only bought
this dress so you could take it off” (yes, old Taylor well and truly is dead.)
As she began Bad Blood, she stepped
into a flying snake skeleton (of course) to return to the stage. I loved the
decision to mash this up with Should’ve
Said No, and her recognition that she came from country music so this nod
to her past was not missed by me!
Her elaborate stage split into various different segment for
Don’t Blame Me with bursts of flame
erupting from the top of the stage. All the dancers left the stage as a piano
appeared on stage at which she sat to sing Long
Live. Her vocals sounded most beautiful here (not that they didn’t
throughout the rest of the concert). This easily transitioned into reputation ballad New Year’s Day. She paused for breath and the applause and cheers
picked up, and lasted, I kid you not, for a full five minutes. Taylor sat at
the piano, a cute smile on her face as she basked in the well-deserved glory.
What a special moment for us all.
The LED screens changed to a video of Taylor in the midst of
a desert as a poem she had penned played out of the speakers, and she returned
back to the stage in sparkly dress for Getaway Car with stunning scenic visuals
projected onto the screens. Again, she stopped to chat with us, explaining how
fantastic it was to be playing Wembley, and would we mind if she invited
someone who had played Wembley many times on the stage? Of course we wouldn’t.
To cheers, Niall Horan came on stage considerably more dressed down in jeans
and t-shirt for a duet of Slow Hands
before heading back off backstage.
Taylor and her backup dancers began to dance around a
fountain on stage to Call It What You
Want before we moved into We Are
Never Ever Getting Back Together. All too soon, we’d reached the last song
and Taylor stood atop the fountain as she sang This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things. But we can, and we did that
night at Wembley.
Fireworks erupted across the stadium as the dancers, singers
and Taylor bowed for their adoring crowd. It really was a faultless production
– Taylor didn’t falter once, sounding perfect with every note, hitting ever
beat and putting on the show we couldn’t have asked for more with. My final
thoughts: what a night. And where can I find out Taylor’s lipstick
manufacturer? I’ll be back for the next tour. Let’s just hope it’s not too far
away.
I hope you enjoyed my
review of Taylor Swifts reputation tour! Let me know what you thought in the
comments or on Twitter @CiarasCountry, and be sure to drop me a follow for
plenty more reviews like this coming very soon. If you’re a Taylor fan, I’d love
to hear what your favourite song is too! I’ll always hold a special place in my
heart for Enchanted!
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