SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Has Taylor Swift become her generation’s Pearl Jam? Bruce Springsteen? Phish?

For this tour, the pop (and sometimes country) star has ratcheted up the hits with a 45-song set that at Levi’s Stadium on Friday ran for more than three-and-a-half hours, with zero down time. That and her ability to change wardrobe in under 15 seconds (she must be a quick change artist now, too), was nearly as impressive as the quantity and quality of songs that she, her band and a full squad of dancers and back-up singers fit into that time.

Levi’s Stadium and the music acts that have played there have been in hot water before for breaking curfew. Unless Swift and Santa Clara came to some prior agreement, fines are coming, with the show ending past 11:35 p.m.—not that most of the attendees in the building cared whatsoever.

The Eras Tour is like a Tour of Taylor Swift. It includes samplings of 10 albums, but not in chronological order. That’s to the benefit of the pacing, which would have otherwise meant starting as a country music concert and including a few too many consecutive slower folky songs from folklore and evermore.

Swift explained the concept midway through the show: Saddened over not being able to play shows because of the pandemic, she instead set out to make and release as much new music as possible. She ended up with a total four albums that didn’t get their own tours: 2019’s Lover, 2020’s folklore and evermore, and 2022’s Midnights. It became a coping mechanism for her, she explained. The tour itself was more or less her response to being questioned about whether she could possibly give each of these albums proper attention on stage.

Would she really tour all four at once? Hell yes she would—and then some!

Swift told this story as an introduction to “champagne problems,” in the evermore era segment of the show, which she called a “sad piano song.” Indeed, she played it on a moss-covered grand piano that magically appeared on stage just for that moment. It had started off as a solo number before the guitar and percussion joined in (when her band wasn’t interacting with her in some way, it was split in two on both sides of the stage).

As she appeared to tear up afterward, a loud chant of “TAYLOR! TAYLOR!” went up in the crowd. It began an ovation that lasted nearly three minutes, growing louder and more intense until the chant started all over again. By this point, Swift looked like she was gonna start bawling.

“What are you doing?” she asked incredulously. “This is an incredible reaction to a sad piano song.” On a night full of exuberant peaks, this was the most touching and unexpected.

It’s difficult to get too in depth on a 45-song set, especially when trying to describe it at 2 a.m., but diehard Swifties already know that 43 songs remain generally the same night after night. Following a 2-minute, 15-second countdown on the stage’s massive video screen, Taylor Swift appeared on the even more massive stage amid a crowd of dancers carrying giant art-deco-stylized fans.

The stage ran the entire width of the field, with an extension that reached to the middle of the field or farther, dipping and rising at points, with a diamond-shaped, video-screen-covered performing surface connected by this peninsula of a stage. Calling it a catwalk doesn’t do it justice. There were many moving pieces that were raised and lowered throughout the night, as well as a shape-shifting set of risers that Swift and her team used often. It wasn’t solely an artistic choice—when she was on the riser, everyone could see her no matter where their seats.

The Lover era segment came first, with Swift in a dazzling, sparkling outfit. Sparkling was the theme of the night, with the sun reflecting off the outfits of many in the crowd who had dressed up for the show. During “Cruel Summer,” she was nearly drowned out by the crowd. She then invited attendees to sing the chorus, and they got even louder. Afterward, she stood on stage, motionless except for her darting eyes, soaking it in.

Then during “The Man,” a multi-tiered platform appeared. Swift put on a bedazzled black coat and acted out a scene, eventually climbing to the top and reclining on an office desk. That song transitioned into a slightly shortened “You Need to Calm Down” and “Lover,” for which she strapped on a pink acoustic guitar. Speaking of which, she played about five or so acoustic guitars throughout the night—never the same one twice.

“You and I are about to go on an adventure through 17 years of my life,” she said before “Lover.” “And we’re gonna do this one era at a time.”

Then, during “The Archer,” which concluded this first era, she made her first appearance at the tail end of the stage. It wasn’t a long appearance, and other than a segment to play two surprise acoustic songs, she never spent too much time there. The song was concluded with a shower of sparks that rained down and appeared to burn a house pictured on the video screen.

The Fearless era followed, and the highlight of the segment was clearly the combination of “You Belong With Me” and “Love Story,” both of which started massive singalongs. Then for the evermore era segment, openers HAIM returned in pastel prom-like dresses to rock out on “no body, no crime,” a sleek tune on record but with a cool alt-country rocker that allowed Danielle Haim to solo along to Swift’s and her sisters’ singing. It was one of the first performances of this song on this tour, and the appearance of the Haim sisters made it even more special.

“Willow” followed and was also poignant. Swift had by that point already switched outfits multiple times, and now she was in a green cloak, dramatically dancing to accentuate the heat. Her dancers circled her with glowing orange orbs. That, combined with the forested backdrop, recalled a scene from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” During “marjorie,” Swift let the crowd sing the intro as the stadium lit up with thousands of white lights from the wristbands distributed before the show.

“Tolerate It” was performed as a sort of interpretive art piece, with one of the dancers playing the role of a man whose job was to sit there at a dinner table and take abuse hurled at him by Swift.

The Reputation era segment came next and contained one of the coolest set pieces (and the best accidental “Barbie” tie-in) of the night. On “Look What You Made Me Do,” Taylor Swift performed in front of dancers dressed like dolls in life-size plastic cases. The segment included a poppier and less-threatening rendition of “…Ready for It?,” starring Swift’s famous one-legged snake suit and “Don’t Blame Me,” during which beams of light shot skyward, right in the takeoff flight path of airplanes that passed directly overhead every five minutes.

“Please don’t be in love with someone else,” the voices of thousands sang along in unison on “Enchanted,” during the two-song Speak Now era segment. Swift appeared in a Cinderella-like ballgown as other dancers twirled around her. Honestly, this segment wasn’t necessary.

The fact that she included these songs and the following Red era segment in this show was sweet dessert. There was even an impromptu fireworks display during “22,” which included a Rockettes-style high-kick line.

“We brought fireworks, but we didn’t bring those!” Swift said a couple of songs later. “That was magical.”

“We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” also had a fun dance routine, and during a shortened “I Knew You Were Trouble,” about 20 smoke cannons shot blasts upward on their chorus. The segment ended with the complete, 10-minute version of “All Too Well,” and a confetti sprinkle throughout the stadium that looked like falling snow.

Through no fault of its own—it’s what these songs are—the folklore era segment halted the pace of the show. It was still beautiful to hear and experience, as Swift was now singing while lying on top of a moss-covered roof of a house with a smoking chimney. I’d be surprised if there’s not someone handling production on The Eras tour with Broadway blockbuster experience. “The 1” was a woodsy tune with organic clicks and clacks.

Swift didn’t skimp on the conversation while playing these 45 songs; numerous times she told stories, such as before “Betty,” explaining her headspace and strategy while writing music. She wrote folklore, as a character-driven narrative with her emotions fused into the mix, unlike most of her songs, which are strictly confessional and personal.

The show featured numerous theatrical dance numbers—again, someone here must have Broadway experience—with the one on “the last great american dynasty” being the most impressive in both wardrobe and performance, which just about pulled the attention from Swift herself. And “august” had Taylor Swift prancing through a Van-Gough-like painting of swirling warm colors. “Cardigan” was sweet and touching, but at least some attendees looked like they were ready for some faster songs by this point.

And they got them on the 1989 era segment. This was the overall energetic peak of the show. The combination of songs—”Style,” “Blank Space,” “Shake It Off,” “Wildest Dreams” and “Bad Blood”—most felt like a medley, each melding into one another. “Blank Space” featured the dancers riding around on day-glow bicycles and Swift swinging a matching golf club. “Bad Blood” had a new, shortened arrangement.

Some Swifties who’ve been to numerous shows on this tour will tell you the surprise song segment, performed acoustically at the very end of the stage, is what excited them most. Through my very quick research into the last dozen or so shows on this tour, these songs are repeated very infrequently, if at all. On this night, Swift brought up her pandemic-era collaborator Aaron Dessner, of the National, for the debut performance of “right where you left me,” off evermore.

She first explained about how the song is very lyric-heavy and that she was worried about messing up; so much so that she’d spent six weeks rehearsing it. She still flubbed a line toward the very end, which probably endeared her to the crowd even more. It was a very minor flub, but they restarted the song on the previous line before rolling through the rest without incident.

Then Swift sat down at an upright piano for the stage debut of “Castles Crumbling,” off the recently released Speak Now (Taylor’s Version). After concluding the song, Swift performed her now-famous dive through a trap door in the stage, reappearing a few seconds later on the main stage for the concert’s grand conclusion, the Midnights era segment.

At this point, after 11 p.m., I actually noticed a few fans trickling away, maybe worried about losing their transportation. But those who did missed one of the show’s strongest movements. Swift picked the very best seven songs from her newest album, blowing through new fan favorites like “Lavender Haze” (her penultimate outfit of the night, a puffy lavender coat over a sparkly lavender shirt, matched the majority of the fans in the building), “Anti‐Hero” (even better live than we claimed it would be in our album review), the sensual “Midnight Rain,” the dark “Vigilante Shit” (with some sexy chair choreography), dazzling “Bejeweled,” “Mastermind” and “Karma,” which concluded in a blossoming fireworks display.

There was no encore. Who could ask for more at that point?

With such a big headlining set, Taylor Swift didn’t ask for much from her two openers, but both showed how small packages can still bring sizable rewards.

Bedroom pop singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams, who went first, might come from an already artistically successful family, but she’s well on her way to making a name for herself. Most of her set consisted of songs from her debut full-length album, Good Riddance.

“Where do we go now?” built up cathartically toward the end. “I should hate you” started off slower before exploding into an alt-rock melody. She also played guitar on “Black me Out.” Early arrivers, however, were more familiar with a couple of songs from her minor EP: “21” and “I miss you, I’m sorry,” on which she played a keyboard. The song took on new life as a simmering, bass-laden song on stage.

HAIM took the stage shortly after Abrams and blew through a six-song set of its own, starting with the groovy “Now I’m in It” and including older songs like “Forever,” “Want You Back” and “The Wire.” For “Gasoline,” off their latest album, Women in Music Pt III, they pointed out how Swift was one of the first people to hear the album and asked to add a verse to the song, on which the band offers some spacey modulated guitar lines and climbing keyboard runs.

The trio concluded with “The Steps,” with Danielle Haim on drums, swinging her hair around.

Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter. Follow photographer Steve Carlson at Instagram.com/SteveCarlsonSF and Twitter.com/SteveCarlsonSF.