© Pathé Live
Regularly alone on this immense stage covered with screens, Taylor Swift imagines the Eras Tour as an act of artistic re-appropriation in which the music would regain all its rights and in the process sweep away the media whirlwind with which it is often confronted (her sentimental life is the focus of the tabloid press and social networks). At the world premiere of Taylor Swift : The Eras Tour, the interpreter of “Look What You Made Me Do” insisted on the place of the fans who would be “the main character” of the film. A title that they attribute to themselves without flinching, with astonishing benevolence. In the room where we discover the recording, they get up from their seats, dance, applaud wildly and shout out to each of the popstar’s emblematic tracks. Everyone knows the words without fail and, better yet, everyone knows each of the gimmicks used by the singer on stage. Like rallying signs, the clappings are reproduced to perfection, just like the “1,2,3, Let’s Go Bitch” intoned during “Delicate”.
A creative and mercantile machine impassive to controversy
The fervor with which this mainly female and adolescent audience fascinates as much as it questions. On the one hand, we are moved to see admirers in the room, who did not know each other five minutes earlier, gathering around songs or exchanging bracelets made in homage to their idol; on the other, we cannot help but think of this mercantile mechanism imagined to be unstoppable and implacable, impossible to be overwhelmed by other considerations, particularly political ones. Unlike Kanye West, with whom she often communicated through the media over the past decade, the singer has always managed to avoid slipping up by keeping the cameras trained on her person rather than on ancillary subjects which could make her a divisive personality. If she has frequently been involved in societal issues (a commitment against homophobia in 2011 or a call for Democratic votes during the American presidential election in 2020), she has always done so as a balancing act to best rally a community of composite fans, in perpetual evolution since the mid-2000s. She undoubtedly remains the only media figure to have been able to bring together the conservative and progressive fringes of an irreconcilable America around grandiose melodies.
In The Eras Tour, the singer only speaks about herself, her fans, and for her fans. If the production of Sam Wrench, repeating the spectacular shots from the top of the 70,000-seat Californian arena, manages to restore the sustained rhythm of the show, there nonetheless remains the lasting impression of attending the performance of a world in isolation, which would no longer need to display great artistic ambitions to exist and prosper. According to Washington Post, this 146-date world tour could become the most lucrative in the history of the American music industry and allow its star to rake in four billion dollars in profits. Thanks to a great start (39 million dollars pocketed on the first evening in the United States), The Eras Tour is also expected to secure the highest-grossing filmed concert title of all time at the worldwide box office, far ahead Justin Bieber : Never Say Never released 12 years earlier. Economically, the Taylor Swift empire has never been doing so well. In fact, it is difficult to see a near future where it could suddenly fail. This is the main conclusion that invades us at the end of this film which, behind its comforting nature of a time machine (appreciating the path traveled since its eponymous album in 2006), does not forget what it exists for: selling concert tickets and “limited edition” buckets of popcorn. They were out of stock before the end of the first session.
2023-10-14 19:02:49
#Taylor #Swift #fans #experiencing #era
