Taylor Swift proves worthy as queen of country music
Fairy tales do come true: They consist of eight costume changes, an enchanted castle, a man-made rainstorm, a hit catalog and a cavalcade of screaming, mostly preteen fans.
If there was any lingering doubt, 20-year-old Taylor Swift rules all she surveys and we are her willing playthings, as evident from her sold-out performance last night at Gillette Stadium.
At “the very last show of the Fearless Tour,” a tour that has run for 15 months, consisted of 110 shows and played on three continents, Swift, the youngest artist to win the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year Award, took 55,000 people on a two-hour whirlwind excursion of her daydreams and diary-entries-turned-hit parade.
The human embodiment of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s sentiment “ ’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” Swift sings lovelorn tales of first kisses, secret crushes, romantic breakups and unrequited advances with so much sincerity and enthusiasm that it’s hard for those who are young and young at heart not to connect with her. Despite her lousy track record with men (as chronicled in her songs and later made fun of in a video shown at the concert called “Crimes of Passion”), Swift is an idealistic, doe-eyed, curly-haired blonde who believes in Prince Charming and happily ever after.
Dressed like a high school majorette, the multiplatinum country-pop phenom embarked onto a virtual high school musical, complete with gym lockers, dancing cheerleaders and high school cliques in the opening number, a massive sing-along, “You Belong to Me.” Swift, who has confidence in her material and an infectious stage presence (and rightfully so), started the evening with arguably her biggest hit when most seasoned (and insecure) pop stars would unmercifully make the crowd wait for the encore. Her rip-away marching band get-up revealed a sparkling silver dress (the first of many sparkly dresses) and knee-high leather black boots — and the fact that she in no longer a high school geek.
A hip-swiveling Swift donned a sparkly silver guitar that matched her sparkly silver outfit for “Our Song,” which became another massive sing-along. At the end of “Our Song,” Swift took a moment that added up to minutes to bask in the show of admiration from the crowd. Looking overwhelmed, she mouthed, “Oh my God,” and later in the evening, looked as though she were on the verge of tears.
“I have never in my life seen anything like this,” Swift said. “I have completely fallen in love with you after only two songs.” She also told the crowd she loves them as much as she loves “sparkly dresses” and burning her ex-boyfriend’s picture, which made the crowd scream even louder.
The stage was transformed into a virtual high school study hall, complete with one of her adolescent crushes sitting at a desk for “Teardrops on My Guitar.” She pondered how love seems to be “this huge complicated thing” and daydreamed about finding “that one great love” as a preamble to “Fearless,” which had her spinning around like a top while she cathartically strummed her acoustic guitar. Donning a sexy red dress and showing her drama queen tendency, Swift had a hissy fit (including throwing furniture around during a mock interview) in her tell-all kiss-off to heartbreaker Joe Jonas on “Forever & Always.”
Swift popped up in the upper first balcony at the 50 yard line (in a skimpy, shiny blue dress) and sang the not-so-secret secret crush serenade “Hey Stephen,” which ended in a massive hugfest (and a security guard’s nightmare) as she walked down the aisle. Always scaling new heights as a performer, Swift made her way to the roof of the sound stage to confess her biggest high school fear (not fitting in) and dream (being asked to the prom by a senior), then poured her heart out on “Fifteen.”
Back on the main stage, Swift, wearing a red Victorian dress, proved she is the champion of happy endings, changing the outcome of Shakespeare’s tale of star-crossed lovers “Romeo and Juliet,” with a happy ending, no less, on “Love Story.”
Now wearing a purple sparkly dress, Swift sang about having a wild (but not too wild) side and a secret attraction to bad (but not too bad) boys on “The Way I Loved You” and flailed back and forth while pounding the keys of a baby grand piano on “You’re Not Sorry,” which included a snippet of Justin Timberlake’s “What Goes Around Comes Around.” With the help of virtual fire, Swift scorched the stage with the set closer, “Picture to Burn.”
With a tailor-made Patriots shirt with the number 13 (Swift’s lucky number and the number of Top 40 hits spawned off her sophomore release “Fearless”), Swift performed a three-song encore, which included “Today Was a Fairy Tale” (accented with Swift-teen wolf Taylor Lautner clips from “Valentine’s Day” and cannons shooting heart-shaped red and white confetti) and “Jump and Fall” (in which she wore a skimpy black party dress and matching electric guitar).
There was a threat of rain all night; it finally came in the form of a showstopper, “Should’ve Said No.” She belted out the tune and got drenched in a waterfall, which scrolled the word “No” in the drops. Ah, the wonders of modern science.
Forget about the Backstreet Boys, ’N Sync and 98 Degrees, 16-year-old teen-dream sensation (and the show’s last minute add-on) Justin Bieber is a one-man boy band equipped with the hippest pop grooves and hippest dance moves around. And forget it if you’re over 15 — you won’t understand Bieber’s appeal.
With his Peter Noone-meets-Adam Rich hairdo and toothy grin that rivals the Cheshire cat, Bieber delivered his innocuous bubblegum pop, which was answered with high-decibel screams from the mostly underage crowd. Wearing a black cargo vest with a white T-shirt, white trousers and white sneakers, the squeaky-clean Bieber, who looks like he doesn’t know which end of a razor to hold, effortlessly worked the preteen crowd into a lather.
For “One Less Lonely Girl,” one lucky fan was plucked out of the audience and given the experience of a lifetime, having Bieber sing to her while all the envious young females in the crowd wanted to be her.