I would have never considered myself a true Swiftie. True, I enjoy her songs and saw her Reputation tour in 2018, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but her albums during Covid were not immediate favorites for me as I preferred the angrier, grittier vibe from Reputation.
But she does put on a good show, so when the Eras tickets went on sale, Anj, Ange and I (the trio from 2018) all tried to get seats for the Santa Clara show. Anj somehow managed to get through the disaster that was the TicketMaster crash and had three VIP tickets in her cart for $400 a piece. At the time though it seemed like too much. We let them go.
Fast forward 10 months and the Eras tour had soon become the biggest thing in the world and an event not to be missed. I can only assume the hype was on par with Woodstock or LiveAid, a cultural phenomenon that people would be talking about for years to come. By July 2023 there were over 100 tour dates announced, she had crashed Ticketmaster a few more times, tickets were sold out within minutes and the resale value for the Santa Clara nose-bleed section was now $2,000.
I actually had access to one of those tickets through work but turned it down. It still didn’t seem right; I wanted something more special and with friends. And if we were going to spend that type of money, it was going to be some place fabulous. We were going to go abroad.
And so we bought tickets to the Mothers Day weekend show in Paris. Five of us in total. And based on my calculations, that four night trip to Paris, including airfare, lodging, food, and the actual ticket bought through StubHub was just about the same price as the single ticket in Santa Clara. Side note: by the accents we heard and people we met at the show, apparently a lot of other Americans did the same math and came to the same conclusion.
And the show itself? Worth every ounce of hype. I am currently trying to find a way to see it again. The woman is a Powerhouse. Full. Stop.
I cried to the expected songs (this time around without pregnancy hormones to blame), sang my heart out with the other 40,000+ fans, shared a friendship bracelet with a 12 year old girl, watched a dad belt out the ballads, and felt a release of pain and frustration and sadness and a burst of joy and belonging that I didn’t know I had desperately needed for the past 6 years. And those last few albums that seemed a bit too soft upon first listening, they actually include some of my new favorite songs. Oh and that new album she released right before our concert, we were the first city on the tour to see her perform the songs live. And let’s just say that the live versions definitely sound angrier and grittier than ever imagined. I mean hell, she has trademarked the name “Female Rage: the Musical” and it feels so right.
No comments:
Post a Comment