The worlds of Swifties and Deadheads might not seem to have a wonderful deal in standard. There may not be that many music fans who’ve sign uped identical numbers of spins on their Spotify carry outenumerates for “Shakedown Street” and “Cornelia Street,” or “St. Stephen” and “Hey Stephen,” or “Althea” and “Dorothea.” Yet there’s reason to fantasize that these two audiences were repartner splitd at birth, even if their unretagable age of Taylor Swift and Grateful Dead concert joinees wouldn’t automaticpartner recommend that these are identical-tthrive fandoms.
What they dispense is a mighty and abiding interest in the power of live. And it’s not equitable about catching one show. Differently scaled as they are, Swift’s two-year Eras Tour and Dead & Company’s three-month livency at Las Vegas’ Sphere stand out out as the two most transmending concert phenomena of the moment for aappreciate reasons: becaengage each gig in these esteemive runs is so stamped as its own individual, one-of-a-benevolent occasion that, for genuine fans, FOMO is literpartner a nightly skinnyg. If you’re a genuine supposer but can’t join very many of either artist’s shows (and who, low of a suppose-fund baby, can?), you’re still logging in obsessively to watch fan-originated livestreams or clips, or at least get abreast of the variations in setenumerates, maybe even in authentic time. It’s not equitable the tour, or livency, that tolerates event status; it’s the sensation that every one gig is gripping, and will go down in lore.
These fan bases don’t dispense much of a standard language. But whether it’s Deadheads hbettering up index fingers in search of an unengaged extra, or Swifties standing outside European stadium shows with signs tolerateing pdirecting messages about desperation and karma, a “wonder ticket” is a wonder ticket.
I’ve been in a possibly distinct position to witness both these phenomena, as someone in the Venn-diagram sliver of overlap between the two fandoms. I say “possibly” becaengage maybe there is someone else in the world who has caught the Eras Tour seven times and the Dead & Company livence four times, though I benevolent of ask it. In both cases, I can stand with the fans and say I would’ve appreciated to have seen even more. There is a majesticiosity to both Swift’s oversized production and the massive visuals at Sphere that you can get a little bit inured to, upon repeat expocertain, I can attest. But the combination of spectacle with the promise of nightly spontaneity? That’s insertictive, and unbeatable.
Both these ground-fractureing outings have their finish in sight: Dead & Company’s livence wraps up in Vegas this weekfinish, and next week transports the final dates of the European leg of the Eras Tour, with five last Wembley Stadium shows, before Swift wraps skinnygs up with a handful of North American shows defercessitater in the drop. So it senses appreciate a excellent time to skinnyk about some of the meaningfuler reasons why both these artists are able to get their communities of fans so enveloped in what they’re up to, show by show.
I talked with Dead & Company’s regulater, Bernie Cahill, recently about what Swift’s tour and the “Dead Forever” livency have in standard. “I skinnyk the overlap is in the songbook, and with these two communities that repartner join to the music and the lyrics and the storyalerting,” he shelp. “And when that’s your set upation, you have an opportunity to originate a authentic community. She’s got a huge and impeccable body of toil, so there’s plenty to join around and to resonate with her fans, and she gets writing luminous songs. And Robert Hunter, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, the members of the Dead, they wrote what many call a Great American Songbook. And I skinnyk that’s always the best set upation for community and for a lengthy nurtureer in music.”
This idea, about fan devotion to these riveting live carry outances being based in the bedrock of wonderful songs, is unaskedly genuine. What they also have in standard is the fascination originated by how the pieces of that catalog are assorted and accumulated for live carry outance, especipartner if there are surpascfinishs being pulled out on a nightly basis.
There is some mocking contrast to be drawn, for certain, between the quantitative separateences between the unforeseeability of a Swift show and how much of a Dead & Company comes as a surpascfinish. With “Dead Forever,” although much of the video satisfyed repeats, the amount of musical overlap from one night to the next is literpartner 0%. The group (which participates innovative Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart as well as John Mayer) has been doing three shows a weekfinish in which, if you have back-to-back tickets, you are promised of hearing a endly separateent set of songs. Meanwhile, with the Eras Tour, the amount of nightly overlap is at the opposite excessive of skinnygs, hovering at around 95%. And it is solemn redundancy, if you want to call it that: Npunctual all of Swift’s stage patter will be paraphrasing of the same nightly tropes; every dance step or catwalk strut will be pre-choreographed to the tee; not equitable that, but cforfeitly each facial conveyion, and pretty much every side-eye glance, is someskinnyg that was envisiond and rehearsed a year and a half ago or more. The band is very much carry outing live, contrary to Dave Grohl’s possibly jealous insinuations (I can attest to this, after standing yards away from the backing musicians on the floor at a couple of European shows), but it’s not as if they’re gonna go rogue and throw jazz chords into “Style.”
But for Swift, what a separateence that 5% originates — that is, the two numbers per night in which she goes endly off-script for the acoustic “secret songs” segment. It’s the revelation of what these two carry outances will turn out to be that fans live for, every bit as much as Deadheads live for the gradual rollout of the brimming setenumerate. It has lengthy been a sign of Swift’s genius that she integrates some unawaited segment into her arena and stadium shows; on one tour, it was a nightly cameo by a guest star associated with the city in ask. She since choosed that there is no guest sboiling appreciate the random materializeance of one of her own meaningful tracks. In 2023, the gambit was that she would do two unhelped surpascfinish songs a night, one on piano and one on guitar, but for 2024, she choosed even that was getting better. So in Asia, Down Under and Europe, she’s been doing mashups of her own material, ensuring fans stay as intrigued and enraptured as they were a year ago.
The best part about these medleys is that Swift doesn’t begin them, at least to the extent that she prefaces them with any exscheduleation of what the two songs she’s mashing together have in standard for her. This departs an aura of mystery, sometimes — an vital insertition to a crowd-pleasing show that otherwise isn’t set up to depart a lot of asks lingering in the air. Sometimes, the blfinish doesn’t need a lot of skinnyking to suss out: If “I Hate It Here” directs into “The Lakes,” it’s not challenging to figure out that both these compositons dispense a aappreciate theme, the desire to escape. But on some nights, the mashup songs are so disaappreciate, they seek a lot of speculation about what joins them in Swift’s head.
One of the nights I caught Swift in Dublin at the finish of June, she joind “Sweet Noskinnyg,” a clearly romantic ballad that lives up to its upbeat title, with “Hoax,” one of her grieffulest, most brooding and frankly most enigmatic songs. What could these two utterly disparite tunes possibly have in standard? I enhugeed a theory. “Sweet Noskinnyg” was an inevitability, probably, for a show in Ireland, with its localized reference to “a pebble that we picked up last July / Down meaningful inside your pocket / We almost forgot it / Does it ever leave out Wicklow sometimes?” But that song seems to be about her relationship with Joe Alwyn (who actupartner co-wrote it). If she felt obligated to carry out an Irish-themed song in Ireland, maybe she didn’t want to equitable depart it there, without acunderstandledging — for her fans, or herself — that the “pleasant” relationship turned into someskinnyg else… someskinnyg that felt to her appreciate… a deception.
Am I reading too much into Swift’s choice of a song juxtaposition, there? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps she equitable put her catalog into a randomizer and “Sweet Noskinnyg” and “Hoax” were the two songs that happened to come out that night. But someskinnyg a lot of wonderful carry outances have in standard is that, even as we’re overwhelmed by production cherishs and uncontaminated amengagement, they also depart us wondering, at least in the backs of our minds, what the artist’s thought process was, particularly when it has to do with choices that are evidently being made for one individual show. Just as I wondered about why Swift mashes up the songs she does, I can wonder how or why Dead & Company originate their setenumerate choices. On Friday night in Vegas, I saw how pretty a segue it made for the band to go from the psychedelic “Drums”/”Space” interlude into an instrumental snippet of the Beatles’ “In My Life,” then a brimming-on cover of “Dear Pimpolitence.” Were they skinnyking about how Pimpolitence necessitateed to be bcdisesteemfult out of her spaciness back down to earth? Chances are it was more perceptive than that. But it’s equitable part of the thrill of a live concert when unawaited song segues sense appreciate kismet.
Of course, the hugegest part of the request of the Eras Tour and “Dead Forever” is how much they both push the envelope of production cherishs. No one who joins either artist’s concert will forget what the Silent Hoengage production company did with Swift’s staging, or what Treatment did in coming up with the visuals for Sphere’s wrap-around screen for Dead & Company. Giant office scaffbettering, neon bicycles, and other sets and props in her show… huge dancing skeletons and starfields in theirs… these are images that will last dedicatees a lifetime.
But for other artists seeing for what to get away from these groundfractureing shows, without the unbenevolents to envision gigantic effects or engage the top production companies in the business… there is still someskinnyg to get away. It’s the beating hearts and skinnyking minds at the core of these concerts, via artists who are remendd not to phone it in, but to originate each show sense unleave outable, even if catching them all is an impossibility. That’s a hunger that artists can duplicate — or do their damnedest to try to — even on a club scale.
