Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour

Eamonn Fox, MCD event controller, promised the concert would delight Swift fans. “She’s bringing such a show, she has 80 trucks of production and it’s a Broadway entertainment show . . . It’s a spectacle,” he said.



“I think it will look an amazing production because Croke Park is a huge stadium in the scheme of it, so for their shows to look good here, they need to…

Whenever Taylor Swift used to perform her 2009 ballad “You Belong With Me,” you could practically hear the angst gnawing through her skin like an episode of “My So-Called Life.” But on Friday night in Dublin, as part of the overseas leg of her “Reputation” tour, she gave her old song a new twist. “Dublin, let me see you jump!” she said in front of an audience of 70,000 fans at Croke Park, as she led the charge in knee-high boots. If all of Ireland felt a little tremor, it’s because Taylor gets what she wants.



In these vocals for “You Belong to Me,” Swift wasn’t sorrowfully hoping for the song’s title to come to pass. She was declaring it as fact. Maybe it’s because, at 28, Swift has undergone a musical metamorphosis or that she’s found stable ground in her personal life. Swift belted out the song as a statement instead of a question, as if was no doubt anybody wouldn’t want to be with Taylor Swift. She had enough witnesses to vouch for that.



In “Look What You Made Me Do,” the first single off “Reputation,” Swift declared the old Taylor Swift had died. But seeing her on tour, it’s a relief to see that’s not the case. Swift is still the most well-mannered pop star in music, as evidenced by her profusely thanking the Dublin crowd for warmly receiving her on a Friday night. What else would they be doing? The Swifties arrived at Croke Park carrying signs like “Don’t Blame Me, Tay Made Me Crazy!”