After Taylor Swift’s sold-out RED World Tour show at the Pepsi Center Sunday night, it might be tough to settle for bands that walk out onto the stage and just perform.
Swift’s extravaganza started right after opener Ed Sheeran stopped “just” singing and playing guitar (and, as an aside, Sheeran more than held his own with his haunting version of Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” and his crowd-pleaser “The A Team”).
Clips of interviews and behind-the-scenes footage from Swift’s videos flashed on the giant screens, and right before Swift made her dramatic entrance, her “fan cam” swept the arena, checking out the hundreds of lighted or painted signs depicting “13” (she says it’s her lucky number), the word “Red,” or other Taylor-themed messages, to Icona Pop’s throbbing ditty, “I Love It.”
From the moment Swift began belting out the vocally demanding “State of Grace,” one of 12 from the 17-song set list that came from the new album, “Red,” Swift put the crowd on notice that she’s making the transition from girl next door to coolly calculating commercial artist.
Or is she? Based solely on the fabulously over-the-top production, it would seem that way.
Let’s start with the seven musicians, four back-up singers and about a dozen dancers, all of whom managed with Swift to seamlessly negotiate no fewer than 10 separate stage segments spread around the arena, including one enormous section that lifted off the main stage, a drop floor, a moving staircase and a runway stage that not only lifted and turned, but also led to a rotating and rising stage at the end so the back of the venue could get some Taylor love. There was even a floating stage that at one point carried Swift through the air by crane.
In addition, because the singer-songwriter is such a storyteller — as she put it, “I write lots of songs about my feelings” — most tunes were delivered with unique choreography, and at least 15 costume changes. “The Lucky One” was offered as an old-timey starlet and her would-be lovers being chased by the paparazzi, while “I Knew You Were Trouble” came off as a Goth-Lite masquerade ball.
Her last song — not an encore, because she finished and then left with a flourish — was worthy of being called a “finale.”
As she encouraged the crowd to join in during “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” Swift, dressed in a flashy circus ringleader costume, paraded around the various stages with her troupe dressed as clowns and stilt-walkers while the air filled with confetti and paper hearts.
Among the rare times the numbers weren’t big stage pieces was when Sheeran came back to do his song with Swift, “Everything Has Changed.” That was right after the only thing that felt unscripted the whole night, when Swift said a young lady during the pre-show meet-and-greet had asked for “Enchanted.” Swift delivered it sweetly and austerely: just her and a guitar.
Which was perfect, because it’s the down-to-earth Taylor Swift that most of the little girls and tweens (and their moms) with their homemade signs had come to cheer
