Cinemas all over the world experienced an opening night like no other on Friday when the Taylor Swift juggernaut pulled up at their doors, with the traditional whisperings of darkened theatres replaced by raucous singing and wild dancing and a concert movie the like of which has never been seen before.
The screens, the seats and the staff will no doubt be shook by the experience this Saturday morning.
I know I am.
I was shook going in, in fact.
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My smear test dilemma: How do I confess that this is my first one, at the age of 41?
You see, I thought I had more time. I thought I had almost a full year to settle on my era, sort my outfit, source the bracelets and – most crucially of all – learn the words ahead of Swift’s sold-out concerts in Dublin next June.
But then the movie was made, lucrative deals struck with cinema chains and a global release slated for October 13th.
So, now as I drive to the Odeon for the opening night, I find myself fretting about all my undone homework.
I’m swamped by Proustian memories of times past and flashbacks of pre-Leaving Cert anxieties. I curse the heavier-than-expected traffic as we stop-start our way along Dublin’s North Circular Road to a soundtrack of Swift on Spotify.
I’ve done my best with the time I’ve been given but I know my cramming in the days since we booked the five tickets for the movie of a concert performed by the most iconic artist of this generation has been too little, too late.
There is nothing I can do about my lack of prep now but shake it off, so I do. I resolve to consider this the Mock rather than then real thing. It’s important for sure, but more of a practice run, and I can learn from my mistakes ahead of next summer’s concert for which tickets were eventually sourced at a cost that would – and in fact did – make Pricewatch blush.
The good news is my outfit wasn’t much of a stretch.
I’ve chosen the Evermore era because – as all Swifties will tell you – it’s basically just a plaid shirt. And if there is one thing that is to be readily found in this Pope’s closet it’s plaid shirts, thanks to well spent decades listening to grungy indie music.
My car certainly smells like teen spirit tonight and as I rage inwardly at the terrible traffic, I twist my Taylor friendship bracelets – another essential accoutrement for the Eras tour – nervously. I can’t help wondering if there is a subtext to the ones shared with me by my wife. The beads spell out the words “I’m the problem, it’s me”.
We arrive at the Point Village where, to my delight, I am laughed at by a man in a high-vis coat as I try to gain entrance to the car park.
“Completely full, mate,” he says. I blame Taylor at first and then Luke Combs who is playing the nearby 3Arena in the next hour or so.
The four other Popes spill dangerously out of the car into traffic and head into the cinema while I seek an on-street space. There is nothing within a 2km radius of the cinema so I eventually park near The Irish Times on Tara Street. I’d not heard of him an hour ago, but now I hate Luke Combs.
I cycle a city bike furiously back and get to the Point drenched in sweat and cursing both Combs and the heavy plaid shirt that seemed like such a good idea just minutes earlier.
I’ve missed Cruel Summer and, tragically, Love Story. They are two of the handful of Taylor Swift songs I know by heart. They were bankers. Missing them is like forgetting to read the English paper properly and not seeing the Yeats and Kavanagh questions having studied nothing but Irish poets for two years.
I find my family in the darkness and am told I have missed two of Taylor’s eras.
“You need to calm down,” my wife shouts as I arrive.
“What,” I shout back, hackles rising.
“You missed You Need to Calm Down as well,” she says.
Dammit. Another banker gone.
I take in the spectacle on the giant screen in front of me. And make no mistake, this is a spectacle. There is no room for dull behind-the-scenes footage, tiresome interviews or even many shots of excited fans. It is all about Taylor Swift and her dancers and the extravagant stages she has set.
The film, which runs for a long-sounding two hours and 45 minutes, covers the 17 years of the singer’s stellar career and takes in all 10 studio albums and 40 of the 46 songs she plays on the Eras Tour. The time flies in a way I’d never have expected and I start to see why it scored an incredibly rare 100 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes – a good 6 per cent ahead of Barbie even. It has also already broken more than one box-office record and it’s barely a day old.
I get settled in time for the Evermore era and I start to like my shirt again – although wearing it is redundant as we’re in a dark cinema and I may as well be in a full flowing ballgown from Swift’s Red era for all the difference it makes to the world around me.
The five songs from Reputation have the crowd dancing while people chill for the more mellow and melancholic Folklore tunes.
Swift sings Betty in a log cabin that magically appeared on the stage in the Inglewood, California stadium the footage was shot in over the summer and belts out August in a flowing ballgown. The Last Great American Dynasty has dancers in evening dress sashaying around like well-heeled whirling dervishes.
Beside the Popes sits a solitary young American singing along – word and note perfect – to every single song. In any other scenario, this would be infuriating, but it only adds to the vibe. This is nothing if not a communal experience. It is one which is further enhanced by another young woman, a couple of rows ahead of me, who FaceTimes a buddy at home on her couch so they can scream “f**k the patriarchy” from All Too Well together. l shout it too, obviously, before peering into the gloom to note that I’m the only middle-aged white man anywhere to seen.
I’m literally the poster child for the patriarchy in this room tonight.
It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me. I feel like I should apologise to everyone for everything.
By 1989 almost all inhibitions are cast away. Style has half the crowd dancing. Shake It Off has everyone dancing.
Swift slows it down with the surprise songs. The theatre falls silent as she plays You’re On Your Own, Kid. It’s hard not to applaud the cinema screen when it ends. Impossible really.
It ends with seven songs from the Midnights era including the peerless Anti-Hero and then it’s over. Young folk stay in their seats for the credits or spill into the foyer where they swap friendship bracelets and stories, buzzing after their near-live experience.
I race out of the cinema, hop on to the city bike, cycle back to The Irish Times, get my car and drive back to the Point before anyone misses me. I’m not the target market for this kind of stuff, obviously, but I am a bit buzzing too, to be honest. Bring on next June in Dublin. I’ll have my homework done by then. I promise.
