Wonderful : Taylor Swift felt ‘amazing and powerful’ as she stormed on stage at Anfield Stadium in Liverpool on Friday for the latest leg of her Eras Tour…

Paramore put in a sterling job as support act, delivering a 45 minute set of power pop-rock, warming up the crowd nicely. Hayley Williams, in her Feminine Rage jacket thanks Taylor Swift for including her band on the tour. They’ve been going for 21 years and know how to stir up this baying crowd, many of whom appear to know all of the words.

After a short wait, two digital timers appear either side of a huge clock on the projected backdrop. The crowd shout out the numbers as they countdown towards zero, and the screaming is deafening. A black rectangle appears in the centre of the screen, which slowly rises, revealing a series of huge, veined butterfly wings which billow dramatically in the wind. After convening into the centre of the enormous extended stage, (with what Guy Garvey once coined a ‘vanity thrust’), Taylor Swift is revealed, sparkling in a pink and silver glitter leotard with matching boots. She bends almost double and twists, pointing around the crowd, which erupts into a deafening aural Mexican wave, which sweeps around the stadium, before bursting into Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince followed by Cruel Summer (an apt choice considering the weather!); and so starts a three and a half hour mega show, the likes of which, this hallowed turf has never witnessed before.

It’s been raining for most of the day, only stopping half-way through Paramore’s performance, but the Anfield gods are looking kindly on us this evening, and apart from a chill wind, halted slightly in its tracks by the bodies around us, the weather holds. I can’t say the same for Swift, who is buffeted as she struts, skips and hops along the runway.