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If familiarity breeds contempt, then Taylor Swift should be getting roundly scorned. Unfamiliarity with the pop hegemon has become a near impossible condition as she traverses the globe with her record-breaking Eras tour. Since it began in March 2023, she has released three hit albums, had 27 songs chart in the US top 20 and released the highest grossing tour film ever. Totting up the hours of listening and watching, I have probably spent more time in her company than with some of my closest friends.
如果熟悉會滋生輕蔑，那麼泰勒•斯威夫特(Taylor Swift)應該受到全面的鄙視。隨著她在全球範圍內進行破紀錄的時代(Eras)巡迴演唱會，不熟悉這位流行音樂霸主幾乎成爲不可能。自2023年3月以來，她已經發布了三張熱門專輯，在美國前20名的排行榜上有27首歌曲，並且推出了有史以來票房最高的巡演電影。計算聽歌和觀看的時間，我與她在一起的時間可能比與一些我最親密的朋友還要多。
To this can now be added the three hours and 20 minutes of her Eras show at Murrayfield stadium in Edinburgh. The first of three nights at the venue, it marked the arrival of the tour on British shores. Loch Tay in the Scottish Highlands had been renamed Loch Tay Tay for the occasion. In Edinburgh city centre, glitter and Taylor-themed apparel were ubiquitous: gold minidresses, cowboy boots and hats, glittery leotards — audacious outfitting for a fresh Scottish summer evening.
現在還可以加上她在愛丁堡默裏菲爾德體育場的《時代》演出，時長三小時二十分鐘。這是她在該場館三晚演出的首場，也標誌着巡演正式抵達英國。爲此，蘇格蘭高地(Scottish Highlands)的泰湖(Loch Tay)被臨時更名爲泰泰湖(Loch Tay Tay)。在愛丁堡市中心，到處可見閃閃發光的泰勒主題服飾：金色迷你裙、牛仔靴和帽子、閃亮的緊身衣——這些都是爲了蘇格蘭夏日夜晚的清新而大膽的裝扮。
An immense caravan of tweens plus parental chaperones, teenage girls and young women headed towards the near 73,000-capacity stadium. (Some of the menfolk wore American football tops bearing the name of Swift’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs.) Most of the Swifties present would have already seen the show — not in the flesh, but on screen. The concert film Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (worldwide box office gross $261mn) came out in the middle of the Eras tour itself (projected ticket revenue, more than $2bn).
一大羣青少年及其家長、少女和年輕女性正朝著可容納近73,000人的體育場進發。（一些男士穿著印有泰勒•斯威夫特男友、堪薩斯城酋長隊球員特拉維斯•凱爾斯名字的美式橄欖球上衣。）在場的大多數斯威夫特歌迷可能已經看過這場演出——不是現場觀看，而是透過螢幕觀看。音樂會電影《泰勒•斯威夫特：時代之旅》（全球票房收入2.61億美元）在時代之旅巡演期間上映（預計門票收入超過20億美元）。
This gave the event an odd kind of familiarity. It risked breeding not contempt but a nagging feeling of surfeit. So while the singer’s entrance was spectacular, hey-prestoed from within a cocoon of fabric on a runway stage to ear-busting acclaim, her opening sequence of songs had a slightly perfunctory feel. Opening number “Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince” was truncated: it deserved more. The burlesque revue for “The Man” — Taylor as corporate alpha in bright pinstripe jacket with dancers dressed as office workers — was fun but throwaway. However, any hint of staleness vanished as the momentum picked up.
這讓整個活動帶有一種奇怪的熟悉感。它可能滋生的不是輕蔑，而是一種過剩的煩惱感。因此，儘管泰勒的出場非常壯觀，從舞臺上一個布料繭中突然現身，贏得了雷鳴般的掌聲，她的開場歌曲序列卻顯得有些敷衍。開場曲目《Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince》被縮短了：它本應得到更多的展示。《The Man》的滑稽表演——泰勒身著亮色細條紋夾克，扮演企業高階主管，舞者們則裝扮成辦公室職員——雖然有趣，但略顯輕率。然而，隨著活動勢頭的增強，任何陳腐的感覺都煙消雲散了。
Epic in length, with more than 40 songs and a vast amount of stagecraft, the tour is spectacularly ambitious. Its setlist is broken into “eras”, each representing a different album from her discography. At Murrayfield, a huge screen for visuals on the main stage was flanked on either side by backing musicians. A long runway extended towards a thrust stage over halfway down the pitch. Swift, alone or accompanied by back-up singers and dancers, used the space very adroitly, mixing up the movement and viewing angles. Costume changes were done quickly, sometimes on stage from beneath a canopy of feathers or umbrellas held by her dancers.
這次巡演的長度堪稱史詩，包含超過40首歌曲和豐富的舞臺表演，極具野心。演出曲目被分爲幾個「時代」，每個「時代」代表她唱片目錄中的一張不同專輯。在默裏菲爾德(Murrayfield)，主舞臺的巨大螢幕兩側是伴奏音樂家。一條長跑道延伸至場地中央的突出舞臺。斯威夫特無論是獨自一人還是與伴唱和舞者一起，都非常巧妙地使用了這個空間，變換動作和觀看角度。服裝更換迅速，有時在舞臺上，有時在舞者持有的羽毛或雨傘下的遮篷下完成。
She knew where the cameras for the big screen were, ending songs by spinning on her heels to fix the lens with a meaningful stare. Yet she was also attentive to the different areas of her large audience. A solo acoustic-guitar version of “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” was interrupted when she spotted a stricken audience member. During the same song, her guitar-picking hand was frozen into a claw by the evening chill, to her amused consternation. This was an unfamiliar occurrence: it had never happened to her before.
她知道大螢幕的攝影機在哪裏，歌曲結束時會轉動腳跟，用意味深長的目光凝視鏡頭。同時，她也關注著龐大觀衆羣中的不同區域。當她看到一位表情痛苦的觀衆時，她中斷了《Would've, Could've, Should've》的獨奏吉他演奏。在同一首歌中，她彈奏吉他的手因夜晚的寒冷而僵硬成爪形，這讓她感到既好笑又困惑。這是一個她之前未曾經歷過的新鮮事。
The setlist also had a degree of unfamiliarity, rejigged to incorporate her latest album The Tortured Poets Department. Its literary theme has inspired a striking new costume: Taylor in an elaborately cut white dress with copperplate writing on it, like a sartorial volume of poetry. During the gothic-pop of “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”, she stood on a mobile box that moved across the stage via an unseen force, forcing dancers to recoil as she pointed at them in the manner of a Marvel superhero. Dance number “I Can Do It with a Broken Heart” was set to old-school Busby Berkeley routines with tailcoats and canes.
歌單中也加入了一些不熟悉的曲目，重新編排以融入她的最新專輯《受折磨的詩人部門》。這個專輯的文學主題啓發了一種引人注目的新服裝：泰勒身著一件精心剪裁的白色連衣裙，上面印有銅版文字，宛如一本行走的詩集。在哥特流行曲《誰害怕小小的我？》中，她站在一個移動的盒子上，透過不可見的力量在舞臺上移動，當她以漫威超級英雄的姿態指向舞者時，舞者們紛紛後退。舞蹈《我可以用破碎的心做到》採用了老派的巴斯比•伯克利(Busby Berkeley)風格，演員們身著燕尾服，手持手杖。
Amid all this choreography, Swift’s appealingly flowing singing style continued without pause. (Her breath control is an under-appreciated skill.) Each word was sung back at her by the tens of thousands in the stadium. Their familiarity with the songs, and also the gestures that the singer made while singing them, was opposite to contempt. It made the atmosphere electric, a shared peak with the world’s biggest pop star.
在所有這些精心編排中，斯威夫特迷人的流暢唱法毫無停歇。每一個字都被體育場裏數以萬計的觀衆回唱。他們對這些歌曲的熟悉，以及歌手在演唱時的手勢，與蔑視截然相反。這讓現場的氣氛變得熱烈起來，與這位當今世界上最偉大的流行歌星共享巔峯時刻。