Seems lately that artists are starting their tours in Omaha. Last year I saw Tim McGraw open up his Southern Voice tour here, and this weekend Taylor Swift started off the North American leg of her Speak Now tour. I wasn't at the first show on Friday night, but I was at the Saturday night show.
I have to say that I am a bit more disappointed in the opening acts compared to her previous Fearless tour. Last time she had new group Gloriana with her, who had a huge hit single, Wild At Heart, out at the time and when the show came to Omaha, their debut CD had just been released. And Kelli Pickler was the 2nd opener, who is also fairly well known & I have both of her albums and was familiar with all of her songs. On this tour Taylor has multiple acts filling in the first slot. In Omaha, that slot was filled with Frankie Ballard. He put on a solid, but very short (5 songs) set. The 2nd opener, Need To Breathe, is somewhat of a rock group. They were good, but I'm not sure if anyone there had ever heard of them. Their set was also fairly short for a 2nd opening act.
Taylor came out just before 8:30pm (concert started at 7pm) and played for 2 hours. The best way to describe it would be "it's the Fearless tour but bigger." She wore 9 different dresses that I counted from the pictures I took and there were many moving parts for the stage setup.
The show started out with her coming up from the bottom of the stage with a bunch of smoke. Of course that was after a big red curtain that was surrounding the stage was pulled back. She started it off with her song Sparks Fly while wearing a shimmering gold dress.
The first set change came before the songs Our Song and Mean. If you've seen the video for Mean or perhaps her performance of it on the ACM's then you knew that the song was coming shortly. A front porch looking set up was brought in on the main stage and Taylor and her band & dancers were dressed in old style country clothes.
Another one of the moving stage parts that was used was a large bridge that was brought down from the ceiling for the song Back To December.
Taylor came up from underneath the stage with a piano to play the song. The bridge was lined with people with violins. I'm not sure if they were actually being played or if they were some of her backup dancers pretending to play.
Perhaps the most theatrical song performed was Speak Now. The song is about speaking up at somebody's wedding that the guy shouldn't marry the girl, but instead run off with her. The song played out almost like a music video on stage with a minister, groom, a girl in a wedding dress with a couple bridesmaids and even church pews with "guests" in them, all played by her band and backup dancers.
When the groom runs away with her at the end of Speak Now, Taylor actually walks to the back of the arena to a small stage where there is a tree she sits at the base of. While Taylor sings a few songs, the first one of which she is playing a ukulele, the tree rotates around.
Another very visual pleasing song was Haunted. Large bells were dropped from the ceiling. Taylor and a couple others acted like they were hitting the large bells at the beginning of the song. Later the bells were raised up and a person dropped out of each one of them on a bungee type cord doing all sorts of acrobatic tricks!
For the encore, she played Fifteen and Love Story. For the song Fifteen a couch came up from under the stage. She started out on it by herself, with her band joining her during the song.
The most exciting part of the show for most people sitting up in the upper sections of the arena came during the closing song, Love Story. Taylor got on a small platform that looked like a balcony and made a large circle around the arena up in the air. She went directly above where I was sitting.
It was an amazing show. Even those who don't like Taylor's music have to acknowledge the fact that she knows how to put on a very entertaining event. If you have the chance to go see the tour, I strongly recommend it. Her shows are the kind that in the years to come you will tell your kids and grand-kids about!
Here is the set list from the show (taken from the review at Omaha.com)
“Sparks Fly”
“Mine”
“The Story Of Us”
“Our Song”
“Mean”
“Back To December”
“Better Than Revenge”
“Speak Now”
“Fearless”
“Last Kiss”
“You Belong With Me”
“Dear John”
“Enchanted”
“Haunted”
“Long Live”
Encore:
“Fifteen”
“Love Story”
And finally, to close out the blog, here are a few more pictures!
No comments:
Post a Comment