Taylor Swift: pop queen swiftly takes Sydney by storm

There’s no doubt about who reigns supreme in the world of pop music. It’s the divine Ms Swift.

Taylor Swift '1989' World Tour - Sydney

First, the glance. Taylor Swift does a very good glance. She freezes frame, turns the head and there it is, on stage and on the giant screens, a beautiful, confident and playful look reaching out to her disciples, all 76,000 of them in this case at Sydney’s ANZ Stadium.

That choreographed manoeuvre is just one among many in the Taylor Swift experience, a show that reeks professionalism — from the singer and everyone on stage to the designers who make this stadium entertainment such an involving, engaging and joyful two hours.

Starting at the end, the sight of Swift and her troupe of highly skilled and occasionally acrobatic dancers, lined up on an offstage raised platform sailing over the crowd to her greatest hit, Shake it Off, is unforgettable. It’s the combination of a great song, a passionate musical performance and clever staging that should leave the most curmudgeonly parent in the crowd admitting defeat and saying, yes, this is a star that deserves every plaudit she gets.

Teenage girls make up a sizeable percentage of Swift’s adoring audience. Girl-power is a recurring theme during her frequent costume changes, when her gal pals, such as Selena Gomez and the band Haim, appear on screen to chat about their cookie best friend and her cats. That leaves time for the star to slip from one pair of hot pants or a slinky dress into another every three or four songs.

Swift’s voice isn’t particularly distinctive, but she knows how to use it, how to deliver, when to push into slightly soulful terrain, such as on the early career anthem Love Story, and when to hold back, as she does armed with just an acoustic guitar, singing from a giant jib extending out into the stadium, on You Are in Love.

It would be unfair to attribute Swift’s success to one thing, but there’s no arguing that it’s the strength of her material that makes her the most bankable artist on the world stage.

The abundance of memorable pop anthems in her catalogue is what helps make her stadium show so powerful. Songs such as Bad Blood and We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together lend themselves to stadium singalongs and like almost all of the 18 songs in the set are lent extra weight and spectacle by the flashing wristbands handed out to the 76,000 punters. This simple device is just one in a number of effective staging props that make the show fly by all too quickly.

Swift parades the catwalk, cajoling and bouncing off her dancers, lifting the crowd on favourites such as Blank Space, Welcome to New York and I Know Places. Her band and singers are more heard than seen, but bring a rewarding mix of precision and spirit to the star’s material. One of the standouts is the extended Out of the Woods, where the ensemble, particularly the other vocalists, lay down a hypnotic groove as a foil to their employer’s soulful lead.

Swift shows her versatility too, occasionally adding piano, acoustic and electric guitar to her armoury. She pouts and struts, punches the air and beckons her devotees to sing with her, as if she needed to.

Another female pop legend, Madonna, will be here soon. Musical differences aside, there’s no denying these two women share a lot as pop innovators with their professional drive, their ability to deliver to the nosebleeds in a stadium and with a catalogue of largely exquisitely crafted songs.

Today, however, there’s no doubt about who reigns supreme in the world of pop music. It’s the divine Ms S.

Taylor Swift. ANZ Stadium, Sydney. November 28. Brisbane, December 5; Adelaide, December 7 and 8; Melbourne, December 10, 11 and 12.