Taylor Swift announced on Dec. 13 that she would be releasing a live concert special entitled “The 1989 World Tour LIVE” and I cannot possibly be more excited for its release. The live concert debuts on Apple Music on Dec. 20 and will feature Swift’s show at the ANZ Stadium in Sydney, Australia. I am glad that Swift is giving her devoted fans the opportunity to experience one of her the concerts, especially those who may not have been able to get tickets for one.
Prior to the release of Swift’s latest album “1989,” I was not much of a fan. I liked some of her songs because they were catchy, but in all honesty, I chose to only see how the media portrays her – as whiny and boy crazy. There is an inordinate amount more to her though and I think that truly shines through on her latest album, but especially seeing her perform live. My mother and I went to see her show when she came on July 10 and 11 to MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. We went the first night and the atmosphere was one of the best that I have ever experienced at a concert.
The most crucial aspect that I hope Swift and director Jonas Aukerland capture in her live concert is the sense of love and community at her show. People tend to write her off as someone who is solely interested in making a profit and someone who writes about meaningless relationships, but these people are making an incorrect assumption. I was at her show for three hours and in the limited amount of time that she had with the audience, she made a conscious effort to connect with each and every person in the audience.
Many people, including Swift herself are aware that her audience primarily consists of young girls and women. The most meaningful moment of the night for me was her speech that she delivered right before she sang “Clean,” a song off of her latest album.
“You are not the opinion of someone who doesn’t know you,” Swift said. “You are not in any way damaged goods if you’ve made mistakes in your life. You are not going nowhere just because you haven’t figured out exactly where you want to go yet, just because you haven’t reached your final destination.”
“All right, let me tell you the things that you actually are,” she continued. “You are your own definition of beautiful and worthwhile, and nobody else’s. You are smarter, wiser and stronger because you made mistakes – not damaged. And most importantly, you are someone who is going through whatever problems and complications that life presents itself with right now, but instead of wallowing in those things, you decided to get up, get dressed and come hang out with me and have the best time ever at a concert…”
“I personally do not think that if you've walked through a bunch of rainstorms,” Swift concluded, “and life just keeps raining on you and you keep feeling like you’re going through these constant storms over and over again – if you keep going, I don't think that kind of thing makes you tarnished, or damaged, or anything you’re afraid it makes you. I happen to think that going through a lot and continuing to go on with your life makes you clean.”
In the two nights that Swift played MetLife, she played to over 110 thousand people and if they reacted to her performance anything like myself, she left them all breathless by the end. I cannot wait to see her live concert special because if it is anything like the real show, I know that it will leave me and everyone else breathless all over again.