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By Saffy Wihoite

Artist: Taylor Swift

Date / Venue: Friday November 9th, 2018 - Mt Smart Stadium, Auckland

Playing up on the concept of girl everybody loves to hate, Taylor Swift, packed out Mount Smart Stadium last night with her Reputation tour. Reputation is her 6th studio album and debuted at number 1 in 13 countries when released in 2017. This album is another reinvention for Taylor, from good girl to bad girl; from mainstream pop to weaponised-electronic pop.

Charlie XCX and homegrown act Broods were the support for Taylor, getting the crowd super excited. Broods are Aucklanders and had been waiting with bated breath to play back in their hometown. The stadium is brimming with people, eagerly fidgeting in their seats.

It's raining but nobody seems to care. Mount Smart is abuzz with energy, so thick you can feel it in the air. The big screen changes from the tour backsplash to the video footage from Taylor Swift's Secret Sessions. Secret Sessions gave fans the chance to listen to the whole album, before it was released, with Taylor herself, in her own home. She is seen mingling and jamming with her fans. They are given the chance to talk about Taylor and what she means to them. It's heartwarming seeing all these people in the presence of their hero. Hearing their stories really showed me just how important Taylor is to her fans. The pop icon has always been fairly interactive with her fans and it is clear that they are just as important to her as she is to them.

A quick trivia question pops up on the screen "Which two Taylor's fight in the Look What You Made Me Do video?" (answer at bottom) before we are treated to the behind the scenes video for Look What You Made Me Do. It shows Taylor being her adorable, perky self as she dresses up as Past Taylor's and talks with the body doubles. She finds it a bit surreal being surrounded by so many "hers". Another quiz and behind the scenes video before Taylor goes back to showing off for the audience. This time she uses reaction videos to Look What You Made Me Do. The fan videos are replaced with a montage of Taylor with soundbites of people and media gossiping about her as the soundtrack. The gossip is cut off and Taylor's face disappears from the screen as a low bass kicks in.

The stage is red and full of smoke, and there, in a sparkly black leotard and over the knee red-bottoms, is TayTay. She looks tiny on stage, but her personality is big. ...Are You Ready For It? Both her opening song and a question to the crowd before her. And the crowd really does seem ready for it. Nobody is left sitting in their seats as we dance our butts off. She oozes sassiness and confidence as she saunters through her opening songs. She closes off the first act with a mash-up medley of Love Story, Style and You Belong With Me. It's a really sweet throwback and shows that Taylor is still in touch with her roots.

It's clear that Taylor is no stranger to the stage, twirling her hair and prancing around it with a huge smile on her face. She plays up her duality of good girl, bad girl impeccably; flipping between being a huge flirt and being coy. Her stage presence affects every single part of her being, from the way she moves to the faces she pulls. She has infinite energy and performs for nearly 2 hours.

Despite switching out her classic red lipstick for black, a black as dark as her reputation, she's still the same sweet Taylor from 10 years ago. She can't help but gush frequently about her band, her dancers and her singers, asking us to cheer for them super loud. Her appreciation doesn't stop there, it spread to all the staff involved; from security to ticket sales, and then finally; to us. Not that Taylor's fans have ever need to wonder if she loves them.

Part of why fans love Taylor so much is that they really feel like they get to connect with her at every opportunity. From intimate events like the Secret Sessions to big sell-out concerts, she still delivers that personal touch. She shares a lot of herself on stage and gives us little nuggets of wisdom. We learnt about her time off and what she thought about while she was gone.

Unsurprisingly it was about reputation. What does 'reputation' even really mean? How come it's so easy to influence if it can affect so many aspects of our lives? When do we even start caring about or understanding reputation? She pondered this while having as much of a taste as possible of a life without fame. And where her life would be now if she had taken a different path?

The second act starts with videos of young Taylor and clips from her old music videos. At first slowly, and then more frequent, cut in images of gold jewelry and smooth tanned skin, and a large snake. The video pans out to show Taylor, unimpressed and well-dressed, with a handful of scantily clad men around her.

The snake is iconic to Taylor's rebirth and Look What You Made Me Do has a lot of snake symbolism. Her band comes in heavy and bass-y. She gives them time to show off by doing a false start before she jumps straight into Look What You Made Me Do. She moves effortlessly through the second and third act. After having explored every inch of the main stage, she hops into a lit-up, carriage-type basket and is lifted above the crowd, while singing Delicate.

Delicate makes good use of the vocoder, giving the song an ethereal feel as she glides along the crowd. She beams and waves as she passes. The carriage drops her off at a secondary stage at the back of the crowd. Taylor asks us to dance with her before her pop hit Shake It Off kicks in. The crowd didn't need to be told twice. She was joined on stage by Charlie XCX and Georgia of Broods and they danced and sang their hearts out for the whole song.

We've all gone silent as Taylor stands with her acoustic guitar around her neck. She strums it absently, an image of herself when she first started out. "Would you mind if it was just.... me you and a guitar?" Taylor softly asks the crowd. Her voice comes sweetly, paired beautifully with her instrument, as she sings an acoustic version of Dancing With Our Hands Tied.

Taylor's stage performers are unmatched, she has everything, clothand aerial dancers too, and they all perform with extreme skill. She rocks out a medley of Bad Blood and Should've Said No. The two different music styles complement each other, the soft country twang of the guitar contrasting the drum-and-bass.

Taylor's concert is performed in acts with corresponding outfit changes. The acts take us through a rise and fall of emotion and intensity and no more clear than when she brings us back down from the high of a medley to a chill, slow vibe.

A piano has taken center stage and Taylor sits at it, her fingers moving naturally over the keys. As she plunks, she talks to us. She tells us how and when she writes songs, she has a memory attached to it. Over time, her memories connected to the songs change; they become less about whatever inspired them and more about her fans. Her playing slowly turns to a medley of Long Live and New Year's Day, which she belts out impressively.

For some singers, this would be an obvious stopping point. But Taylor wants to give us more. While she changes into another outfit, a video plays over the big screen and she shares her poem Why She Disappeared via voice over. The poem talks about the downfall of her reputation and how it fuelled her rebirth. She finishes the poem strong; "And in the death of her reputation, / She felt truly alive."

This is the final act and Taylor gives it all she's got, running around the stage and dancing hard as she sings. A fountain takes center stage and a Gatsby-inspired house fills the big screen, serving as the backdrop for a medley of We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together and This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things. All of her stage team have joined her to dance around the fountain and to really send us all home on a good note. After the song, they all take a bow. Taylor's smile looks like it will split her face and she can't stop waving and blowing us kisses as she disappears through the trap door.

True to her sweet nature, the final clips shown on the big screen are that of her crew and her putting in the hard work. It shows her learning her choreography and her stage directions. Roll credits.

*The answer is Fearless and Red Tour Taylor.

Reviews

Concert Review Taylor Swift - Auckland - 9th November 2018