It’s probably fair to say there’s no hotter performer on the planet right now than Taylor Swift.
“This has been a relly fantastic week so far,” she said from the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena stage Friday night. Seeing as how she was named Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year on Wednesday, that’s maybe a bit of an understatement. “I hope you find us at least remotely entertaining.”
Swift’s show was nothing if not entertaining. There were ballet dancers and flying stages and aerial acrobats swinging from enormous bells. There was a harp player, fireworks, countless costume changes and a seemingly endless variety of props, instruments and musicians rising up from the stage. Entertaining doesn’t begin to describe it.
And there at the center of it all was Swift, who played for more than two hours to a sold-out crowd of better than 12,000 fans. “Good evening, Jacksonville, Florida,” she said a few songs into her set. “I’m Taylor.”
Her set leaned heavily on her latest album, “Speak Now.” Of the 18 songs she played Friday night, just five were repeats from the last time she played Jacksonville, in 2009.
For the most part it’s difficult to call what she plays country music. And the entire production -- every hair flip, eye roll and hip swish -- was as carefully choreographed as a Broadway show. This tour has been going on for more than a year, so everyone knows their parts. Entertaining? Certainly. Spontaneous? Hardly.
But her core audience -- teen and preteen girls, many of whom have Swift’s curly blond hairstyle -- didn’t mind a bit. They were there to have a good time, and Swift delivered. Every time she popped up from some unexpected corner of the stage, wearing a completely different outfit than she had on not a minute earlier, the screams were loud enough that surely the folks at the Jacksonville Fair across the street must have heard them. Swift’s fans don’t just like her; they adore her, and they’re not shy about it, singing along and waving handmade light-up signs throughout the show.
Swift works hard for that praise. There was no intermission in her show and she pranced and danced and played guitar and ukulele and piano without a break (other than for the quick costume changes). It’s remarkable that she can do all that and still sing.
She was accompanied by an eight-piece band, a backup singer and six dancers. At times, such as on “Better Than Revenge,” her guitar players were trading licks that wouldn’t be out of place at a heavy metal show. Then they’d tone it way down for a pretty ballad such as “Back to December.” Then they’d go bluegrass for “Our Song.”You just never knew what was coming next. It was a little overwhelming but, befitting the Entertainer of the Year, never dull.