In theory, it's easier to play music in an arena than on a stage in the middle of a football field. The sound can be better controlled, it's more intimate and lighting effects are often more impressive. But there are a handful of elemental musicians who are just as good — if not better — in a stadium. Bruce Springsteen is one of them. After a stellar show in front of 55,000 ecstatic fans in the Meadowlands, you can add Taylor Swift to that short list, too.
Swift brought the Red Tour to the Prudential Center in Newark for three shows in March. Those were fine concerts, but there was a lingering sense that Swift, 23, was still growing into the more adult concerns of her newer songs.
The elaborate sets, costume changes, choreographed routines and pyrotechnics didn’t overshadow the star — she’s far too charismatic for that — but they did detract from the thematic coherence of the show. Why, for instance, were harlequins prancing around during "Treacherous," for instance? Why was "I Knew You Were Trouble" sung in the midst of a mock 19th century dress ball?
Those performance elements seemed like vestiges of a fairy-tale past that Swift had shed as she stepped into her role as one of America's finest traditionalist pop songwriters.
The harlequins and the dress ball were still there at MetLife Stadium on Saturday night. In the months since the Newark concert, the Red Tour has not changed a bit. But the sets, the dancing and the playacting felt farther away, receding into the vastness of the stadium and the muggy New Jersey night.
Swift, on the other hand, seemed bigger, better defined, in sharper focus. No dancer, she nonetheless has become a master of the simple stage gesture that communicates to thousands — a sudden look back over her shoulder, an arm thrown in the air as she reaches for a high note, a low knee bend as she strums, blond hair splashing over her fret board. Lest you think I’m calling her superficial, remember that Springsteen does a lot of that kind of thing, too.
No struck pose would matter if Swift weren’t the bearer of a message that resonates for millions. The singer’s narrators insist on fair treatment from those who purport to care about them — boyfriends, authority figures, adults in general. Because Swift’s characters are women, there are feminist overtones to those demands. In the past, she has hidden those overtones behind her wholesome image.
These days, she’s not bothering to be polite. She’s a rock star, and she’s in charge — and that helps to explain why her songs were clutched to the hearts of thousands of delirious young girls, many of whom brought homemade signs, light sticks and other tokens of passionate devotion to the stadium.
Swift’s singing was, again, inexact. The Motown-inspired rearrangement of "You Belong to Me" could not save her from verses too low for her limited range. The swoops on "The Lucky One" were an adventure. That was a problem when Swift was an upstart country singer — a style where exhibitions of vocal skill are mandatory.
But now that she has shed genre like a dress that doesn’t fit anymore, she’s free to be the character actress she always was. Swift has always been closer to ’70s singer-songwriters such as Carole King and (especially) Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie than she is to an artist like Carrie Underwood, and although the glossy pop numbers like "22," "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" sounded terrific through the stadium sound system, the concert was at its best when the star sat alone at the piano or strummed an acoustic guitar.
"Should’ve Said No," a country-pop number from Swift’s first album, was stripped down to a coffeehouse arrangement that foregrounded the star’s yawp of outrage at a philandering boyfriend. "All Too Well," an epic breakup song from the "Red" album, was an exorcism; "Begin Again," the set’s hopeful closer, was gorgeous and plainspoken.
Soon enough, Swift is going to realize she no longer needs to treat every band song like a Broadway production — that her star is so bright that it drowns out all the frippery anyway. Those new to the party don’t need the fireworks. Those who’ve grown up with her are sticking with her no matter what.
Main support act Ed Sheeran, who joined Swift for a performance of their duet "Everything Has Changed," is another acoustic-toting singer-songwriter whose work plays better the bigger the crowd he's got. Sheeran's act, which involves looping and layering his voice and instrument until it sounds like there's a band playing behind him, has tightened up considerably since the spring. A star in England, he remains best known in America for his winsome ballads "Lego House" and "The A Team." But on the lengthy "You Need Me, I Don't Need You," Sheeran incorporated elements of hip-hop and reggae into his folk-pop -- and on a fine solo performance of Jay-Z's "New York State of Mind," he pushed the hybrid even further. And his rapping wasn't half bad.