t finally happened. It took us days of snaking queues outside post offices and many, many articles about her to get here but global megastar Taylor Swift finally kicked off the Singapore leg of The Eras Tour on Saturday (Mar 2) to great fanfare.
I’ll admit: I’m not the biggest Swiftie. I stopped religiously listening to her songs after the non-Taylor’s Version of 1989 – an album that came out in 2014. That’s an entire decade of not keeping up with Tay Tay. As such, coming into the concert, I was worried if I’d be able to appreciate the experience – especially once post-1989 songs started playing.
However, as I quickly learnt, that’s the beauty of The Eras Tour. Unlike most other concerts which feature a selection of songs from various albums lined up randomly, the setlist of The Eras Tour is split into sections that mark a different Swift album across her 18-year-long career – an era, if you will.
If you aren’t familiar with a particular album, motifs and visuals related to its themes will play at the start of each “era”, giving you an aperitif. As Swift puts it, The Eras Tour is for old fans to “celebrate the memories” shared over the years and for new fans to “catch up with all the fun”.
Before we go any further with Swift, I need to quickly talk about Sabrina Carpenter – the opening act for this leg of The Eras Tour.
She was simply magical. The 24-year-old singer made every moment of her set count, whether it was displaying her vulnerability with Because I Liked A Boy or working the crowd with her cover of Abba’s Dancing Queen.
Her masterful performance of her viral hit Nonsense was another strong display of her musicality. In 35 minutes, Carpenter proved she was ready to command and conquer a bigger venue for her next solo concert in Singapore.
Thirty minutes after Carpenter’s set, it was time for the show to start properly. The countdown before Swift’s appearance will forever be etched in my mind; the cheers and screams from the audience at this concert were louder than any other shows I have ever attended. And again, this was before Swift got onstage.
Swift kicked things off with songs from her Lover era, starting with Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince. Admittedly, Lover isn’t my favourite album but it didn’t matter as Swift was operating at 110 per cent from the get-go. Her energy was infectious and it was honestly hard to look away from her iconic bedazzled Versace bodysuit that has since become a calling card of The Eras Tour.
As one would expect from Swift, her vocals were on point. In fact, they were unwavering. Not once during the three-and-a-half-hour show did Swift’s voice show any weakness. Couple that with the choreography and instrument playing she did and it was clear that Swift has further evolved as a bona fide entertainer since her last Singapore concert in 2015.
My favourite performance that night was undoubtedly Swift’s mash-up of I Don’t Wanna Live Forever and Dress. Swift punctuated every line with raw emotion while deftly playing the piano. That, for me, was peak Taylor Swift.
The set designs also deserved praise for elevating each era’s themes. For instance, Swift’s 2020 release Evermore was an album I had never listened to before this concert. However, its section in The Eras Tour was one of my favourites, thanks to the immersive background videos which highlighted the album’s brooding themes. Another worthy mention goes to the Midnights section of the concert because I genuinely thought Swift climbed that ladder up to the clouds.
Swift herself also seemed to genuinely be having fun during the show. She regaled attendees with a story of how her mother grew up in Singapore and later showed her childhood haunts here. “My mum actually spent a lot of her childhood with her mum and dad and sister growing up in Singapore,” said Swift of her mother Andrea Swift.
She even acknowledged the overseas fans who flew in for the concert, asking them to “make some noise”.
The full setlist of Swift’s first The Eras Tour show in Singapore is as follows:
Lover Era
1. Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince
2. Cruel Summer
3. The Man
4. You Need To Calm Down
5. Lover
6. The Archer
Fearless Era
7. Fearless
8. You Belong With Me
9. Love Story
Evermore Era
10. ‘Tis The Damn Season
11. Willow
12. Marjorie
13. Champagne Problems
14. Tolerate It
Reputation Era
15 …Ready For It?
16. Delicate
17. Don’t Blame Me
18. Look What You Made Me Do
Speak Now Era
19. Enchanted
20. Long Live
Red Era
21. 22
22. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together
23. I Knew You Were Trouble
24. All Too Well
Folklore Era
25. The 1
26. Betty
27. The Last Great American Dynasty
28. August
29. Illicit Affairs
30. My Tears Ricochet
31. Cardigan
1989 Era
32. Style
33. Blank Space
34. Shake It Off
35. Wildest Dreams
36. Bad Blood
Acoustic Songs
37. Mine + Starlight
38. I Don’t Wanna Live Forever + Dress
Midnights Era
39. Lavender Haze
40. Anti‐Hero
41. Midnight Rain
42. Vigilante S**t
43. Bejeweled
44. Mastermind
45. Karma
All in all, Swift delivered everything she set out to do with this show. Fans around me were on their feet most of the time, singing along to every song and having a great time. And then, we have yours truly who left the concert with an appreciation of Swift’s newer works, specifically songs from Evermore and Midnights.
Was it a perfect concert? Almost. The National Stadium’s acoustics and sound system continue to be the bane of performances there, this time causing an echoey effect at certain parts of the show.
Nonetheless, the first Singapore show of The Eras Tour lived up to the gargantuan hype surrounding it. If the remaining five shows continue having this level of quality, suffice it to say, The Eras Tour will go down as one of the best concerts of 2024 in Singapore.
