Taylor Swift continues her unstoppable reign on the second London leg of her Eras Tour

It's a magnificent feat to make a place as big as Wembley Stadium feel like it's just you and the artist. Words: Abigail Firth. Photos: TAS Rights Management.

There's an undeniable magic to the Eras Tour. As Taylor Swift descends on Wembley Stadium for the seventh time this year for the penultimate show of her European run, it's become an event that could convert even the staunchest naysayer into a full-blown devotee. Because there's nothing quite like this in pop culture, now or ever.

Sure, huge stadium shows with their own dress codes and customs have passed through London in the past couple of years, but there's an extra level of preparation for the Eras Tour that surpasses donning a pink fluffy cowboy hat for Harry Styles or something silver for Beyoncé. All colours of the rainbow and points on the greyscale have become synonymous with album cycles, carefully constructed friendship bracelets are traded between fans outside and passed to the security guards and police officers controlling the crowds, attendees arrive in replications of Taylor's stage costumes and video looks, others dress as their favourite lyrics or plaster them across t-shirts.

This is a longstanding tradition at Swift concerts for those in the know, now adopted by almost everyone in the whopping 92,000-person audience. This is what's immediately striking about the Eras Tour.

On Taylor's last tour here in 2018, in support of her sixth album 'reputation', she wasn't exactly in the public's favour, a strange fact considering she still played two nights at the very venue she's got a residency at this time around. The pendulum hasn't just swung back towards Swift, but the Eras Tour has made it, for perhaps the first time in her whole career, cool to like her.

In the time between the 'reputation' tour and the Eras Tour, Taylor's career has hit peaks and valleys, and then peaks and peaks and peaks, so much so that when the tour opens with her first 'era', 2019's 'Lover', it's hard to believe this was the album once considered her fall off.

'Cruel Summer', maybe Swift's first real sleeper hit, is the first blast of euphoria after emerging to a snippet of 'Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince'. These aren't obvious choices for the opening act of what is effectively a rebranded greatest hits tour, but they serve as a reminder that Eras is also a tour for the four (now five) albums released in her time off.

What follows is two eras of back-to-back hits. With her earliest self-titled album omitted, the 'Fearless' section features the oldest material that gets an outing; it's probably the right choice, given these were her big breakout singles. Few concert experiences can compare to the joy of hearing 'Love Story' and 'You Belong With Me' back to back before immediately getting thrust into the 'Red' run of '22', 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together' and 'I Knew You Were Trouble'.

A demonstration of her stature across generations, 20-and-30-somethings blub away to songs that soundtracked their teenhood, while the '22' hat, given out every night fresh off Taylor's head, is passed on to a very young girl who can be seen on the big screen shouting 'I love you' in the star's face. This is the emotional whiplash of the Eras Tour, doubled down on with a full-length version of 'All Too Well', the greatest representation of what the Taylor's Version releases have done for her career, as she took an album track widely regarded as an all-timer and turned it into a Billboard-topping 10-minute behemoth.

Similarly, during Swift's early 2020s reinvigoration, the TikTok algorithm caught wind of 'Speak Now' midpoint 'Enchanted' and made it the defining track of that album, meaning it's the only one from that album on the setlist.

It's a consistently thrilling spectacle, bolstered by the 'reputation' section that's up next. Bombastic and disruptive, it pierces through the whimsy of the first four sets without losing any of the ecstasy as she rattles through the harder-edged tracks in her repertoire like '…Ready For It?' and 'Look What You Made Me Do'.

For every other 'era', there's a rotation of costume colours and designs, but for 'reputation', it's notably the same one-legged, snake-emblazoned catsuit she steps out in every night. Somewhere along the line, it'll probably be a cryptic clue, leaving those desperate for the Taylor's Version hanging as, for the umpteenth time, it doesn't arrive tonight.

As the show makes its way into the second half, the 'folklore' and 'evermore' section is the point where anyone who's a casual listener wanders off to the loo or bar, but for those who stay, it's easily the most magical. A gorgeous setup of a log cabin and some of the most heartstring-tugging indie pop you've ever heard, the 'folk-more' tracks shine in a stadium in ways it would've been difficult to imagine when she dropped the albums mid-lockdown.

It's a magnificent feat to make a place as big as Wembley Stadium feel like it's just you and the artist, but here's Taylor Swift, tinkering away at a mossy piano or strumming an acoustic guitar and doing exactly that.

It's around this point that it becomes obvious how the intensely choreographed nature of the Eras show has taken away from any spontaneity or even non-scripted speeches. It's reliably similar night after night, with the odd change up like the line shouted by one dancer in the bridge of 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together' or the aforementioned costume colours.

With a show this ambitious, there's no way for it not to be tightly wound with no risk of unravelling. Still, those thoughts almost immediately pass when the graphic of the 'folklore' mountains pans over to a city skyline and the '1989' era (prior to this, the last time Swift was heralded as such a pop force) gets underway.

By now, the sun has completely set, and '1989's fluorescence beams through the stadium. 'Shake It Off', 'Blank Space' and 'Style' are the final high for those who only came for the hits and a burst of energy for those lulling and knowing there are another two records yet.

The Eras Tour concludes with Taylor's two most recent records, first up, this year's 'The Tortured Poets Department', which, despite its reign atop the album chart and impressive production, doesn't garner as much of a reaction as her older LPs.

'But Daddy I Love Him' and 'Who's Afraid Of Little Old Me' are memorable scream-alongs, while 'I Can Do It With A Broken Heart' is a tongue-in-cheek reaction to those asking, "How does she do all this every night?".

'Midnights' also succumbs to recency bias (although, the Eras Tour kind of is the 'Midnights' tour, in traditional album cycle-age), making the final stretch a bit of a slog after the early insertion of 'Anti-Hero'. 'Mastermind' and closer 'Karma' are pure joy and pop perfection, while tracks like 'Lavender Haze' and 'Midnight Rain' could, at this point, save on some set time.

Breaking up the two albums is an acoustic section: two surprise songs on guitar, two on piano, every night. Tonight it's the turn of fan favourite 'Long Live' from 'Speak Now', mashed up with 'Fearless' closer 'Change' on guitar, then 'Lover''s 'The Archer' and 'Midnights' standout 'You're On Your Own Kid' on piano.

Perfect choices as she nears the end of a tour that's changed both Taylor and pop culture forever, the former duo capturing her triumphs time and time again while the latter duo unpack her relationship with fame and fluctuating popularity.

Which leaves the question, where does Taylor Swift go now? With one more show to go in Europe and an extra leg added for the US and Canada, it sort of feels like she could do the Eras Tour forever, just adding new albums, plodding along with her superhuman work ethic of churning out new records and touring the biggest show in the world, but it'll finally come to an end by the time the year's out.

So as the most people you've ever seen in one place file down Olympic Way, it's interesting to see merchandise and friendship bracelets worn as a badge of honour, the title 'Swiftie' now something that anyone would take pride in bestowing upon themselves, but it's also debatable how long this seemingly unshakable dominance will last.

One thing is certain, though, and it's that for the three and a half hours Taylor Swift is on stage, the Eras Tour is rightfully the biggest show in the world.