You
only get once chance for your daughter’s first gig, so let’s go big…!
Regular
readers of this blog will appreciate that mine
host for this one, Country ingenue turned multi-million selling mainstream
pop sensation Taylor Swift, is so far outside my usual listening sphere as to
be in a completely different time zone. Indeed, some friends have questioned
whether I’d even intended to include this in my gigbook and blog at all (it’s a
gig, of course I am!)… But here’s the thing; my 9 year old daughter Kasey, very
much the outlier in our family as regards musical taste, loves “La Swift”,
playing her poppy “1989” album to death in the car; so much so, in fact, that I
bought her 2 more Swift albums, the preceding “Red” and her most recent effort,
2017’s allegedly “controversial” album “Reputation”, just for some variation!
It was actually on buying those for her, on a recent shopping trip in town,
that Kasey announced she’d love to see Swift “live”, so I figured this would be
the perfect opportunity for some daddy/ daughter quality time (possibly the one
dynamic in our family that’s a little lacking, I’m sorry to admit). Plenty of
availability remained for her 2 Wembley Stadium shows, so I easily sorted 2 tix
for the Saturday, albeit up in the “gods” in the upper circle – happy to go £67
per ticket for that, not so sure about pitch-level seating at nearly £200!
Kasey
was thrilled at the prospect either way, so I picked her up after her
Stagecoach session on Saturday lunchtime for a baking drive down to our planned
parking spot at Ickenham tube, hitting Wembley Park and the iconic Wembley Way
walk just after 3. Whiled away a couple of hours in the adjacent Brent Library
and Outlet Centre, Kasey also having a play in the play park, before we met up
with Steven, Freya and Halle, who’d driven from Bridgend on freebies for this
one! Decided against joining the humungous merch queues, so Kasey and I went
in, taking escalators to take our seats, up in the gods, house left, with a
splendid view of the stage; two massive screens (already showing continuous
Taylor Swift videos) met diagonally in a “V” shape, with 2 runways also pointing
out diagonally. A bit different from Raze*Rebuild at The Shooting Star, this…!
Opener
Charlie XCX, an enthusiastic girl seemingly wrapped in white polythene, bounded
onstage at ¼ to 7; I recognised her second number, the sassy-gobbed girly chant
“I Don’t Care”, and appreciated some of the tribal drumming on the luminous
green pop-art tom toms, although the rest of the set was more standard pounding
europop. Charlie was pretty energetic, however, working the whole of the stage
and both runways, and getting the early-comers singing along and cheering to
her comment on, “3 badass women standing on one stage – that’s some girl
power!” Kasey then demonstrated some admirable gig timing, wanting a toilet and
hot-dog run just before the end of Charlie’s set, so we avoided the inevitable
massive queues. Nice work! Main support Camila Cabello was greeted by a fuller
stadium and a cooling breeze in our vantage point; her stuff had a more Latin
feel (especially an early, flamenco-flavoured “She Loves Control”), no surprise
I guess given she’s from Miami and was doubtless weaned on Gloria Estefan… One
number, “Never Be The Same”, was an old fashioned power ballad right out of the
Jennifer Rush songbook, complete with wanky guitar solo, and a snippet of “(I
Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You” made my mind wander back to Joey
Costello’s set last Friday!
As
witching hour approached, a welcome bit of rock in shape of The Runaways’ “Bad
Reputation” played over the PA; then, the video intro to “Reputation”’s opener
“Ready For It” saw the huge screens part, and La Swift take the stage, first
propelled forward on a runway, then striding purposefully onwards, alone yet
enveloped in dry ice, to the track’s dramatic sheet metal synth opening. From
the off, this audience was in the palm of her hand and she knew it, striding
the stage like she owned it, basking in the focus and spotlight. Impressive.
The
set largely drew from last year’s “Reputation”; in comparison with her lighter,
poppier previous albums, this one is edgier, darker and swathed in occasionally
Kraftwerkian synth (I shit you not), seemingly reflecting a harder attitude on
La Swift’s part. However, she was still nonetheless a welcoming host,
commenting fulsomely on her “13th show in London! I love the number
13…” and demonstrating some stadium showmanship during the almost Bon Jovi hair
metal-esque flag-waving anthemic early double of “Love Story” and “You Belong
With Me”, which seemed to indicate that she could successfully apply to be
Waltham’s lead singer, if this pop malarkey doesn’t pan out…!
And
as for “the show”… well, she pretty much threw the kitchen sink at that too:
pre-arranged routines with backing dancers; rapid-fire costume changes,
pyrotechnics and fireworks galore; a hundred-foot tall inflatable cobra
unfurling onstage during the edgy “Look What You Made Me Do” (the underlying
rhythm of this song’s chorus totally recalling Kraftwerk’s “Tour De France”); a
glowing ball which propelled her above the crowd to a smaller stage, midway
along the seated pitch floor, during the aptly named ballad “Delicate”; another
snake during the groove-led “Shake It Off”… she even trotted out ultimate
“prop” Robbie Williams towards the end, for an unexpected duet run-through of
his Britpop-lite anthem “Angels”, to squeals of delight from all and sundry.
Old Rob’s sounding more and more like Elton John these days, but the crowd
lapped it up…
And
you know what? So did I. I loved it, loved the big preposterous “show”, which I
have to confess surprised me a little… I’ve been critical of the likes of U2
for turning stadium gigs into overblown prop-fests and detracting from the
music in the past. But here, I guess because I was more emotionally invested in
making sure my daughter had a great time than in the music itself, I could
detach myself and appreciate the show. The important thing was that Kasey was
in heaven, dancing furiously and singing and screaming along to almost every
song, including her highlight, the stately and soaring “Blank Space”, tonight’s
highlight – for both of us (although for me, “Fifteen”, a hushed solo acoustic
coming-of-age countrified ballad, ran it close)…
After
the Robbie interlude, a singalong “Getaway Car” bumped us up close to the end,
at which point Kasey decided on an early departure to beat the crowds heading
back to the tube. We therefore heard the sassy finale medley of “We Are Never
Getting Back Together”/ “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” whilst
traversing Wembley’s bulk, and managed to avoid the rush, back to Ickenham for
11 and home just after 12.15 after a swift run, an exhausted but elated little
girl tucked up on the back seat. Overall, a great day out and one which
hopefully Kasey won’t forget in a hurry. If this is the type of music she’s
going to be into, then there’s no better proponent of it right now than Taylor
Swift, a consummate performer who (as a wise man once said) at least writes her
own songs. A great first gig for Kasey, and in all honesty, a worthy 1,093rd
one for me!
No comments:
Post a Comment