Saturday, Sep. 26, 2009

Review: Taylor Swift displays blonde ambition in Dallas

Taylor Swift's schoolyard wallflower bursts to life Friday at the AAC, dazzling the crowd.

Preston Jones

DALLAS -- There was a time when Taylor Swift was just another Nashville hopeful, a girl with a guitar and some songs.

Three years after her first single, Tim McGraw, raced up the charts, Swift is a multi-platinum, award-winning juggernaut that can fill a room the size of the American Airlines Center on her debut headlining tour.

Not bad for someone on the cusp of 20.

Fresh from her headline-making appearance on MTV's Video Music Awards (maybe you missed Kanye West swiping her microphone?), Swift delivered an assured performance Friday night. For about two hours -- frankly, she had a 90-minute set stretched like taffy to fill two hours -- she swooned, sang and thrashed her tousled mane, all to the delight of the heavily female audience, many of whom were dolled up in Swiftian attire.

If there was a theme to the evening, it might be best summed up as "revenge of the wallflower." Swift frequently makes reference to all manner of schoolyard trauma in her songs; her between-song chatter likewise kept circling back to the horrors of high school life. Her inability to broaden her horizons beyond heartbreak is her Achilles heel; few other artists can evoke the specific strain of vaguely humiliated scorn that Swift has mined so effectively. However, after the ninth ditty about a boy who did her wrong or got away or shattered her dreams, the songs become rote exercises in youthful exorcism.

Perhaps the seething angst would be more easily swallowed were it not for Swift's distinct lack of lung power. The 19-year-old's pipes often verge on tremulous and there were moments Friday when Swift was slightly overwhelmed by her backing band. But, hey, when you've got an entire arena belting out tunes with you, who's gonna notice? The set list was hit heavy -- tracks like Love Story, You Belong with Me and Hey Stephen all made appearances -- but that's hardly unexpected for someone with only two albums but a stack of Number One singles.

One element of Swift's show that started out as familiar -- making a surprise appearance in the cheap seats midway through the set -- turned into something almost magical, if a little frightening. Rather than dart quickly through the audience or take a backstage detour, Swift took her time walking from the back of the AAC to the front, wading through the crowd. The mania on display was on par with Jonas Brothers-inspired frenzies, but Swift, unfazed, stopped for brief hugs, shook hands and didn't flinch from the hundreds of flashbulbs, outstretched cell phones and plainly desperate parents straining to catch a glimpse of the singer.

Indeed, Swift seemed, at times, genuinely moved by the crowd's reaction; she paused after Tim McGraw, drinking it all in and even appearing slightly choked up. Almost as soon as her eyes brimmed, her guard snapped back up and she slipped easily back into superstar mode. It was a tantalizing glimpse of the girl, standing there with her guitar, likely living out her dream as country-pop's reigning queen.

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