Pop

Swift isn’t only a hard act to follow, she’s hard to open for, and Paramore will play before her all summer in some of the biggest venues in Europe. So frontwoman Haley Williams laid out the band’s mission: Getting the crowd “ripe and ready for Miss Taylor Swift.” They did just that, kicking their set into high gear with the second song, a sharp-edged cover of the Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House.” The song is half funk, half a herky-jerky deconstruction of it, and Paramore leaned into that contradiction, as Williams, an energetic performer, did her best high-octane, high-awkwardness dance. “There’s no such thing as bad dancing at a Paramore show,” she told the crowd after that.” But since Swift’s performance is polished to a high sheen, Paramore’s manic, messy energy made a nice contrast. 

The idea that American and British performers touring Europe will attempt a few sentences in the local language has lasted long past the time when local audiences didn’t speak great English. No one cares anymore. Except when it comes to Swift, who only had to speak one word, enchanté – literally “enchanted” but colloquially “good to meet you” – to get Parisians, who are normally too cool to go nuts, to go nuts. She continued in what sounded like a decent accent – something was très bien and something else was c’est magnifique – and the crowd just kept going crazy.

Some of the fans there were French and hadn’t had much of a chance to see Swift before this, but some came from other countries in Europe and others from the U.S. or Canada. It was a smart way to build energy, too. After Swift’s countdown clock hit zero, she opened with “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince” and “Cruel Summer,” then gave herself a minute to stand still without letting the crowd’s energy fall. Then she went onward to “The Man” and “You Need to Calm Down,” which no one did.  

The energy of the concert never flagged, but certain songs made the audience erupt with enthusiasm. The most artfully staged was “Look What You Made Me Do,” which had the backup dancers in what looked like plastic display cases that they broke out of. The constant movement was muted, restrained – then freed and unleashed as the song’s beat seemed the make the arena shake. Sure, as the song says, the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now; why? Because she’s dead! But the staging was all about escape, rebirth, reinvention. It’s the Eras Tour, after all. 

Since Lover served as the show’s opening era, after the Reputation performances ended with “Look What You Made Me Do” – and rapturous applause – one of the newer Taylors (circa Folklore and Evermore) came back onstage, atop a see-through wood cabin. Lounging on the roof, as the audience’s wristbands glowed an autumnal yellow, Swift performed “Cardigan.” It’s hard to make an arena mellow, but the cabin established a setting and the mood-lighting drove the point home: This was about atmosphere. It’s a gorgeous, ethereal song, quite a contrast from “Look What You Made Me Do,” but that’s the point of having eras in the first place. 

The section of the show devoted to Folklore and Evermore had its own kind of energy – rapturous and almost roomy, rather than fast and furious. Swift explored it with eight songs – “Cardigan,” “Betty,” an especially affecting “Champagne Problems,” “August,” a shortened “Illicit Affairs,” “My Tears Ricochet,” “Marjorie,” and “Willow.” It was like a walk in the woods, followed by a crash back into the city when the 1989 segment started with “Style,” after which Swift went into “Blank Space,” and then a triumphant “Shake It Off,” a short “Wildest Dreams” and a “Bad Blood” that brought down the house. The last three songs came off like a victory lap, as though Swift was justifiably proud of her quieter music but wanted to show that she still owned the shake-the-stadium anthems of her first pure pop album. The stage was set for…something.  

Before the show, one could hear anticipation (in several languages) about whether Swift would add a new era for her new album. The consensus seemed to be…probablement, and it ended with a new video that had the visual vocabulary of The Tortured Poets Department – moody, with muted tones and images of paper and, at one point, a typewriter. The applause went from loud to explosive – most people there knew enough about the normal setlist to realize this was a departure from that, and that they would be the first ones to see it. In a white dress, Swift leaned into this, and a version of “But Daddy I Love Him” that went directly into “So High School” made everyone realize they were seeing something truly special. Swift, who always seems happy to be wherever she’s performing, seemed especially excited, too. It is, literally, a new era.  

Swift played a generous helping of new songs – “But Daddy” and “So High School,” and then “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” “Down Bad,” “Fortnight,” “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” and “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” – all with the kind of precision that the entire show is known for. But the live standout was “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” which has the scorned fury of some of her earlier songs, and a backing video that lit up her eyes underscored the anger in it. If this tour is Female Rage: The Musical, as Swift says, “Who’s Afraid” emerged as one of the frighteningly good numbers.  

After the Tortured Poets era, Swift took out an acoustic guitar and, even without doing anything, raised a certain amount of suspense about what songs she’d play on it. “There’s a song that I have been wanting to play in the acoustic set in the Eras Tour ever since I wrote it,” Swift said, “but I was only going to play it for the very first time” – suspense! – “in one specific city.” The crowd went wild: She meant “Paris,” in Paris! It was perfectly suited for the unplugged treatment, and it went over great – especially in a crowd with so many people who had traveled so far to be there. Then she played “loml” on the piano, which was less obvious but even more beautiful.