The RED Tour

THE SHOW
Seeing Taylor live in 2013 was seeing a maestro at the top of her or anyone’s game. No other pop auteur could touch her for emotional excess or musical reach. The red sequins on her guitar matched the ones on her microphone, her shoes and 80 percent of the crowd. Her set was mostly new songs from “RED”, one of the slickest, smartest and just plain best mega-pop statements of our time. “Hi, I’m Taylor,” she said by way of an introduction. “I write songs about my feelings. I’m told I have a lot of feelings.”

Nobody could touch her for fan hysteria, either. The audience was part of the show, with their homemade red costumes, placards, Lite Brite codes and more glowsticks than an Inspiral Carpets reunion. For most of them, Taylor was the first girl they’ve seen play a guitar, a signifier that cannot be denied. Once the lights went out, the screaming never flagged, and neither did the star. But the best moment was the double-shot of “I Knew You Were Trouble.” into “All Too Well.” Taylor turned “Trouble” into a blast of razzle-dazzle choreography in fancy-dress masquerade-ball mode. Then she sat alone to play “All Too Well,” her most majestic ballad, just a girl and her piano and several thousand other girls singing along. It was the highlight of a show that was nothing but highlights.

Seeing Taylor onstage during the “RED Tour” was witnessing a level of total commitment, total fan fervor, total connection between audience and performer. No other performer really hit that pitch of happy/free/confused/lonely hormonal anguish with so much wit and empathy.

Her moods are her universe and expressing them is the reason the universe exists. This is a useful conviction for a singer to have, even if it’s more dangerous for the rest of us. But Taylor wore it like a true arena-rock goddess at an amazing peak.