The "Shake It Off" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Listening to my grand- daughters, Courtney and Camille, tell of one of the biggest experiences of their young lives.  All started this past Christmas when they opened their last gift from their parents on Christmas morning and found they were each holding a ticket to a Taylor Swift concert.  Taylor Swift is a 25 year old singer-songwriter and actress who was born in nearby Wyomissing, Pennsylvania who eventually moved to Nashville, Tennessee at the age of 14 to pursue a career in country music.  

Courtney's photo showing where they were located
in the stadium. Shawn Mendes was performing.

 She is a favorite of both my granddaughters as well as most of their friends.  I sat and listened to the two of them tell me all about the experience and then asked if they had taken any photos.  Well, I now am looking at about a dozen photos that Courtney emailed to me from her phone which she took on the night of the concert, July 13.  Nationals Park was packed for both nights of a two-night World Tour concert with about 45,000 (mostly girls and their moms) showing up each night.  Early, on the 13th, a limo picked up my granddaughters and quite a few of their friends and moms, 25 in all, and escorted them to the stadium.  All were presented with white wristbands when they entered and began to try and find their seats.  

Courtney's photo of Taylor singing her first song.

 The large group was sitting in upper right-field seats in the baseball stadium with the stage in front of them on the centerfield grass.  I can't imagine the excitement as they waited for the show to start.  At about 7:00 PM Shawn Mendes took the stage as one of the three acts that would play before Taylor took the stage.   Shortly after 8:00 PM Taylor Swift began with her song "Welcome to New York."  Taylor went through a list of 15 hits during the evening with a few changes of costumes that were pretty nifty.  One of the highlights of the evening was the introduction of a very talented recording artist, dancer and judge of So You Think You Can Dance, Jason Derulo.  

Camille's photo showing the wristbands they wore.

 That was pretty neat!  Both Courtney and Camille thought Taylor was so nice since she shared little stories about each song with the crowd so they got to know her a little bit better than they did before.  She even told the crowd that, "I'm smiling so much.  I feel like I'm standing here with 45,000 of my friends."   Nice touch for perhaps the biggest pop star of her era.  

Taylor, extended over the audience, with the wristbands
illuminating with the beat of the song.

 At one point Taylor stood on a platform that mechan- ically stretched out and over the audience in front of her.  After the song she performed while on the platform, it malfunc- tioned and couldn't be retracted.  She talked to the audience for some time until it once again began to move back into place.  But, the biggest hit and one that will always be remembered by my granddaughters, was the wristband that they each had on their wrist.  

During the performance of another song,
fireworks burst from behind Taylor.

 During several songs, as the beat of the song became pronounced, the bands, throughout the stadium, began to flash.  A variety of colors lit the stadium to the beat of the music.  Courtney took a video which she emailed to me and I have included it at the end of this story for you to see what they experienced.  Close to 11:30 PM, and way past the normal bedtime of many in the audience including my daughter Brynn, Taylor closed the concert with one of the crowd's favorites, "Shake It Off."  The long evening was a big success and one that will be remembered forever as perhaps the best Christmas gift they got in the year 2014.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.