Through 10 different eras, 16 costume changes, levitating stages, bursts of autumn leaves and snow, blasts of fire and fireworks, there isn’t a second wasted on this journey through Swift’s greatest hits

Taylor Swift performs on stage during The Eras Tour at Aviva Stadium. Picture: Charles McQuillan/TAS24/Getty Images

Taylor Swift, Aviva Stadium, Dublin

★★★★★

Nothing Taylor Swift does is by happenstance. So the opening line to The Eras Tour should be taken at face value.

“It’s been a long time coming but — it’s you and me, that’s my whole world.”

As she sings the line, rising up from beneath the stage of the Aviva Stadium, she points directly into the crowd lest there be any doubt. She’s talking about us.

And tonight, just like last night, and the night before that, she gives the 50,000 strong audience absolutely everything she has for a three-and-a-half-hour spectacle that cherry-picks the best tracks from her 18 year career.

And, “nights one and two were just warm up shows”, she assures us with a cheeky grin.

As one of The Lucky Ones that managed to score a ticket for more than one night, I have to concur.

Tonight, everything seems just that extra bit magical.

Taylor Swift performs on stage during The Eras Tour at Aviva Stadium. Picture: Charles McQuillan/TAS24/Getty Images

Maybe it’s because it’s closing night at the Aviva, and we’ve just made history (The Eras Tour is the first show to sell out three nights at the venue).

Or maybe, her smile is just that little bit wider tonight because a certain American football superstar has made an appearance.

But her beau Travis Kelce isn’t the only special guest in attendance – there is also Oscar winner Julia Roberts who traded friendship bracelets with fans and one Miss Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac fame.

Nicks, who is in Dublin ahead of the start of her European tour on Wednesday, has been an ardent supporter of Swift throughout her career, and even inspired a track on Swift’s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department.

Tonight, Swift performed it live for the first time during her acoustic ‘surprise set’, dedicating it to her ‘hero’.

“The reason I want to play this tonight is because a friend of mine is here who is watching the show and who has really been one of the reasons why I or any female artist gets to do what we get to do. She’s paved the way for us,” she said.

Mashing it up with ‘The Lucky One’ from 2012’s Red, she finished it by turning to face the direction of the VIP tent, blowing a kiss in Nicks’ direction.

The song, which Swift wrote about the fickleness of the music industry and its penchant for building up a star just to replace them with the next ‘big thing’ seems particularly pertinent tonight as Swift stands before us, undoubtedly in her own glittering prime.

“Beauty is a beast that roars down on all fours demanding more,” she coos, “only when your girlish glow flickers just so do they let you know.

“It’s hell on earth to be heavenly / Them’s the breaks, they don’t come gently.”

At just 34, Swift has already been through the ringer, steadily working her way up to what seemed like worldwide dominance with 2014’s 1989 before being essentially cancelled by the public over a public feud with Kanye West/Kim Kardashian in 2016, only to then be catapulted to a whole new level of fame and public adoration just a few years later.

Swift, it seems, is more aware than any that her time at the top will be but a flicker in time, and tonight she gave her blood, sweat and tears on the stage to ensure it goes down in the history books.

Taylor Swift hugs a young fan at The Eras Tour at Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Picture: Charles McQuillan/TAS24/Getty Images

From the screaming roars of ‘Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?’, to the softness of ‘Marjorie’ and the pop highs of ‘Shake It Off’, through 10 different eras, 16 costume changes, levitating stages, bursts of autumn leaves and snow, blasts of fire and fireworks, there isn’t a second wasted on this journey through Swift’s greatest hits — or a lyric left unsung by a fanbase that know every word of a 274 song discography.

“Ask me what I learned from all those years / Ask me what I earned from all those tears,” Swift sings on her closing number, “Ask me why so many fade, but I’m still here.”

“Sweet like justice, karma is a queen, karma takes all my friends to the summit.”

Long may she reign there.