“If there's a blueprint for a future utopia in the year 2023,” Minneapolis Star Tribune music critic Chris Riemenschneider confidently declared in the wake of the second Twin Cities show of Taylor Swift’s ongoing Eras Tour, “it could come from a Swift concert.”
After witnessing two of those concerts myself—once in Philadelphia and then in Minneapolis—I believe it.
Music—and live music in particular—brings people from different backgrounds and walks of life together like little else. We’ve all seen footage of Beatlemania and Woodstock and Queen at Live Aid, for instance, and virtually all of us can recall memorable moments from live shows we’ve attended. I’ve seen it myself many times before, whether at Swift’s own previous stadium show in 2018 or an untold number of arena spectacles put on by Bruce Springsteen, Prince, and the Rolling Stones. It’s a spirit that’s just as present at amphitheater and smaller venue performances from acts like Foo Fighters, Gary Clark, Jr., and Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, as well as comparatively staid locales like jazz or blues clubs and symphony or opera halls.
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