Taylor Swift brings her country pop to 12,000 fans at Rod Laver Arena

June 2024 ยท 2 minute read

LAST February American superstar-in-training Taylor Swift sold out two club shows in Melbourne. Fast forward a year and she's sold out two Rod Laver Arena shows.

It's made all the more unlikely considering Swift is a 20-year-old country singer who writes her own songs and steers her own career.

In a world where Miley Cyrus is the epitome of manufactured teen pop, Swift is a refreshing antidote.

She's squeaky clean, dodges scandal (questions about her stage invasion by Kanye West are shunned by minders) has a positivity and professionalism that belies her years.

In another rarity for young female stars these days, it's clearly Swift's vision at work. Her lyrics, generally about the thrills and trials of young love, tap instantly into her demographic - she's a G-rated musical Carrie Bradshaw.

This was proven tonight by the fact the predominantly female audience chanted back every single one of her words to her.

Which was lucky as the show was plagued by muddy sound early on.

Her Fearless show is like watching a kid in a candy store bringing her dreams to life in her first world tour.

Things run from her party trick of whipping one outfit off to reveal a sparkling evening dress in You Belong to Me to a school room crush re-enacted on stage in Teardrops on My Guitar.

Swift already knows how to work a crowd. From pausing after songs to let the ear-splitting screams build up to a crescendo to saying to her audience ''I'm gonna spend the whole night trying to tell you just how much I love you,'' the atmosphere was as electric as any boy band concert.

While the Grammy-winning album Fearless had its since remixed in a less country fashion for radio, it's all Nashville here, even if her band have been given rockstar makeovers.

Her songs are simple but effective. Like the actual-teen-writing-about-actual-teen-angst Fifteen or the worldwide hit Love Story.

The night's best moment came when Swift sang Hey Stephen in a stage near the back row and slowly worked her way back to the front for the next few songs, enthusiastically hugging dozens of fans along the way.

It was a simple gesture but one that instantly set her apart from most of her contemporaries.

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