The worlds of Swifties and Deadheads might not seem to have a wonderful deal in common. There may not be that many music fans who’ve sign uped equivalent numbers of spins on their Spotify carry outcatalogs 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 reassociate splitd at birth, even if their mediocre age of Taylor Swift and Grateful Dead concert joinees wouldn’t automaticassociate recommend that these are identical-ttriumph fandoms.
What they split is a strong and abiding interest in the power of dwell. 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 dwellncy at Las Vegas’ Sphere stand out out as the two most transmending concert phenomena of the moment for analogous reasons: becaemploy each gig in these esteemive runs is so stamped as its own individual, one-of-a-benevolent occasion that, for real fans, FOMO is literassociate a nightly leang. If you’re a real dependr but can’t join very many of either artist’s shows (and who, low of a depend-fund baby, can?), you’re still logging in obsessively to watch fan-originated dwellstreams or clips, or at least protect abreast of the variations in setcatalogs, maybe even in authentic time. It’s not equitable the tour, or dwellncy, that endures event status; it’s the sensation that every individual gig is gripping, and will go down in lore.
These fan bases don’t split much of a common language. But whether it’s Deadheads helderlying up index fingers in search of an unemployd extra, or Swifties standing outside European stadium shows with signs endureing pdirecting messages about desperation and karma, a “extraordinary event ticket” is a extraordinary event ticket.
I’ve been in a possibly distinct position to witness both these phenomena, as someone in the Venn-diagram sdwellr of overlap between the two fandoms. I say “possibly” becaemploy maybe there is someone else in the world who has caught the Eras Tour seven times and the Dead & Company dwellnce four times, though I benevolent of doubt 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 expobrave, I can attest. But the combination of spectacle with the promise of nightly spontaneity? That’s includeictive, and unbeatable.
Both these ground-shattering outings have their end in sight: Dead & Company’s dwellnce wraps up in Vegas this weekend, and next week conveys the final dates of the European leg of the Eras Tour, with five last Wembley Stadium shows, before Swift wraps leangs up with a handful of North American shows tardyr in the drop. So it senses appreciate a outstanding time to leank about some of the proestablisher reasons why both these artists are able to protect their communities of fans so enveloped in what they’re up to, show by show.
I talked with Dead & Company’s administerr, Bernie Cahill, recently about what Swift’s tour and the “Dead Forever” dwellncy have in common. “I leank the overlap is in the songbook, and with these two communities that reassociate join to the music and the lyrics and the storytelling,” he shelp. “And when that’s your establishation, 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 protects writing intelligent songs. And Robert Hunter, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, the members of the Dead, they wrote what many call a Great American Songbook. And I leank that’s always the best establishation for community and for a lengthy atsoft in music.”
This idea, about fan devotion to these riveting dwell percreateances being based in the bedrock of wonderful songs, is undoubtedly real. What they also have in common is the fascination originated by how the pieces of that catalog are assorted and assembled for dwell percreateance, especiassociate if there are surpascfinishs being pulled out on a nightly basis.
There is some sarcastic contrast to be drawn, for brave, between the quantitative contrastences between the unpredictability of a Swift show and how much of a Dead & Company comes as a surpascfinish. With “Dead Forever,” although much of the video satisfied repeats, the amount of musical overlap from one night to the next is literassociate 0%. The group (which includes innovative Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart as well as John Mayer) has been doing three shows a weekend in which, if you have back-to-back tickets, you are guaranteed of hearing a finishly contrastent set of songs. Meanwhile, with the Eras Tour, the amount of nightly overlap is at the opposite inanxious of leangs, hovering at around 95%. And it is grave 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 proximately each facial conveyion, and pretty much every side-eye glance, is someleang that was envisiond and rehearsed a year and a half ago or more. The band is very much carry outing dwell, 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 contrastence that 5% originates — that is, the two numbers per night in which she goes finishly off-script for the acoustic “secret songs” segment. It’s the revelation of what these two percreateances will turn out to be that fans dwell for, every bit as much as Deadheads dwell for the gradual rollout of the brimming setcatalog. It has lengthy been a sign of Swift’s genius that she includes some unforeseeable 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 stoasty appreciate the random euniteance of one of her own proestablish 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 elderly. 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 common for her. This departs an aura of mystery, sometimes — an vital includeition to a crowd-pleasing show that otherrational isn’t set up to depart a lot of asks lingering in the air. Sometimes, the fuse doesn’t need a lot of leanking to suss out: If “I Hate It Here” directs into “The Lakes,” it’s not difficult to figure out that both these compositons split a analogous theme, the desire to escape. But on some nights, the mashup songs are so disanalogous, they ask a lot of speculation about what joins them in Swift’s head.
One of the nights I caught Swift in Dublin at the end of June, she joind “Sweet Noleang,” a see-thharshly romantic ballad that dwells up to its upbeat title, with “Hoax,” one of her sorrowfulnessfulest, most brooding and frankly most cryptic songs. What could these two utterly disparite tunes possibly have in common? I growed a theory. “Sweet Noleang” was an inevitability, probably, for a show in Ireland, with its localized reference to “a pebble that we picked up last July / Down proestablish inside your pocket / We almost forgot it / Does it ever ignore Wicklow sometimes?” But that song seems to be about her relationship with Joe Alwyn (who actuassociate 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 “sugary” relationship turned into someleang else… someleang that felt to her appreciate… a trick.
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 Noleang” and “Hoax” were the two songs that happened to come out that night. But someleang a lot of wonderful percreateances have in common is that, even as we’re overwhelmed by production cherishs and uncontaminated delightment, 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 setcatalog choices. On Friday night in Vegas, I saw how attrdynamic 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 leanking about how Pimpolitence needed to be bcimpolitet 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 dwell concert when unpredicted 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 Hoemploy 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 scaffelderlying, neon bicycles, and other sets and props in her show… huge dancing skeletons and starfields in theirs… these are images that will last promisees a lifetime.
But for other artists seeing for what to get away from these groundshattering shows, without the unbenevolents to envision gigantic effects or employ the top production companies in the business… there is still someleang to get away. It’s the beating hearts and leanking minds at the core of these concerts, via artists who are choosed not to phone it in, but to originate each show sense unignoreable, 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.
