Category: Uncategorised

Taylor Swift – reputation Stadium Tour

by melissay1, posted in Uncategorised

If you don’t know this already, a fact you’ll learn about me very quickly is that I love Taylor Swift and have done for the past ten or so years now. Taylor is the one artist I listen to whose music connects to me more than any other, her lyrics are just so relatable! Top that off with the fact that her shows are, and have always been, magical and just a whole new level to any other show I’ve been to – so its safe to say I was always going to love the fact I could watch her latest tour as many times as I wanted on Netflix.

I was debating whether or not to write anything at all about the reputation tour on Netflix as I’m not sure if I’ll be able to write something like this without it being garbage, but as I’ve near enough watched it every single day since it was released on Netflix on the 31st December it naturally makes sense for it to be this weekends blog post.

Taylor spent the majority of 2018 touring the world with her reputation stadium tour and the Netflix show is the entirety of the show but from a closer than front row seat. The concert begins with a montage of Taylor throughout the years, documenting the negative comments the media has thrown at her throughout her years in the public eye. Taylor’s reputation is a key theme of this tour which is no surprise considering her reputation album was likely written around the time the negativity surrounding her was at its peak. Taylor disappeared from the public eye and now she is back keeping her private life to herself and doing better than she ever was before now she doesn’t care about her reputation.

The concert begins with …Ready For It? which by just the title alone was a perfect choice for the introduction to her stadium tour. This was a fantastic opener when I went to her concert and it is even more incredible watching on the Netflix documentary. This is then followed by one my personal favourites from her reputation album, I Did Something Bad. I just can’t explain how well this song comes across live and I feel that this song really showcases Taylor’s confidence in herself. Its from here Taylor continues performing songs from her reputation album and hits from her previous albums – with Love Story sounding every bit as current as it did when I saw her perform it on her Fearless tour.

A quick outfit change and Taylor moves on to performing her reputation hit, Look What You Made Me Do. This song is Taylor well and truly hitting back at the haters and the song is even performed with a giant snake raising up from the ground. Taylor has just completely embraced the haters but without being petty about it and it just comes across wonderfully on stage. Plus the choreography of the dancers is pretty amazing and one of the cleverest routines I’ve ever seen. I went through a stage last year where people I didn’t know were name calling me and that I was being called out when I did nothing wrong and I listened to this song so much at the time, its nothing like what Taylor went through but for me this song performed live is one of my favourites for that reason. I loved seeing Taylor embrace her ‘snake’ name on stage and I feel that her doing that gives people who are going through a bad time with their own reputations hope that you do get over it and grow stronger as a person from the experience.

This brings me on nicely to when Taylor speaks to the crowd between songs. Every tour I’ve been to her speeches just connect with the crowd and I know from my point of view, every tour I’ve been to of hers she always says the things that I really needed to hear at that point of my life and the reputation tour was no exception. This tour in particular I feel the message she was conveying of trying not to care about what people say about you and how your reputation is perceived to others is such an important one.

What I love about Taylor’s shows is her ability to make sure every single person in the crowd enjoys her shows. She had 2 smaller stages at the back of stadiums on this tour to ensure everyone had a very good view of the show at some point during the night. I feel like the smaller stages were many people’s highlights as it saw Taylor revert back to just her and an acoustic guitar performing stripped backed versions of current songs as well as a surprise mystery song from her back catalogue. The Netflix documentary sees All Too Well, as the mystery song performed that night which I’m fairly sure is most fans favourite song – this is definitely a nice touch for the Netflix show!

Back to the main stage, Taylor performs a mash up of Bad Blood with Should’ve Said No proving that the old Taylor is still around! This was one of my favourite moments of the tour and I’m sure it pleased both fans old and new. Don’t Blame Me was one of my surprise highlights of the show, I was indifferent to the song but when you see it live you just can’t help but love it and because of its live performance it’s now one of my favourites from reputation and one of the ones I’ve watched on loop on Netflix.

After the intensity of Don’t Blame Me, Taylor slows it down with just her and a piano performing a medley of Long Live and New Years Day. New Years Day was my instant I love this song when I listened to reputation for the first time and I’ve adored Long Live since Speak Now was released so for me I couldn’t have asked for a better part of the show. I know I’ve said this a lot but this is also one of my highlights of the show.

Sadly the show comes to an end with Taylor fitting in a couple more songs from reputation before finishing with We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together and This Is Why We Can Have Nice Things – two songs I never would’ve thought worked together but surprisingly do! It’s so sad that the tour is over as I could just watch Taylor perform for hours, particular nowadays as she has a real new found confidence that just oozes out when you’re watching the concert. Plus this show has stepped up a notch from Taylor’s previous tours yet maintained everything you expect from one of her shows.

The reputation tour is my favourite tour I’ve been to in years and if you can’t tell by this blog I’m so thrilled I get to watch it on Netflix. If you’re a fan of Taylor you’ll absolutely love watching and if you’re not a fan and have a Netflix subscription why not give it a watch? I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at what an incredible show Taylor puts on.

Did you go to the reputation tour or have you watched the show on Netflix? I’d love to hear what you thought!

Blogging Update

by melissay1, posted in Uncategorised

I started this blog again at the end of September and I had good intentions of writing weekly again but as ever even the best thought out plans never go well. As previously mentioned my last blog (which I wrote weekly for years) I became scared to post anything that wasn’t a book review, I just became pigeon holed into that being my thing. Then I felt pressured to read even when I wasn’t particularly enjoying alot of the books I was reading and then became even more pressured to write a review up of everything I read – it just lost the enjoyment for me. I love reading and I don’t think I’d actually stop writing book reviews but at the same time I don’t want to be restricted in that being the only thing that I’m allowed to write about. So, I started up this blog in a bid to post up what I wanted, when I wanted and give myself the freedom that I so badly wanted back .

However, the last month or so I’ve become obsessed with trying to figure out what my blogs ‘thing’ is. People keep telling me that my blog needs a thing, which I guess in my previous blog that was books. I feel like I’ve been using trying to find what my thing is basically as an excuse to procrastinate – because doesn’t everyone need the littlest excuse to not to do things? I watched a vlog recently and they were saying how Netflix and phone games and whatever else you chose to do instead will still be there after you’ve wrote things, and you know what that is so true. I spend too much of my life putting things off. Maybe yes I spend too much time watching Netflix lately and I definitely spend way too much time talking myself out of writing this blog with a million stupid reasons as to why I shouldn’t write it. Who cares if no one else but myself reads it? Who cares if people disagree with my opinions on things? This year was certainly an eye opener for me that people aren’t always going to like or agree with the things you do in life but why should that be a reason not to do things?

The truth is, I’ve missed blogging. I’ve enjoyed taking a few months out and have just read what I’ve wanted read and I’ve watched what I wanted to on Netflix but I’ve missed that little weekly burst of writing I used to get from doing a blog. Maybe I don’t need to decide what my thing is. Maybe just writing every week will help me discover. Maybe just writing up weekly waffle is a thing? Who knows, but I’m back giving this another go.

The diary is back out, the weekly blog planning is happening again and I’ve talked to people about doing the occasional guest post on here. I’m excited about doing this again and for the time being that is all that matters.

Dear Evan Hansen – Val Emmich

by melissay1, posted in Uncategorised

If you mention the word musicals to me it will not take me long to get on to telling you how much I love Dear Evan Hansen. However, fun fact – I’ve never actually seen it! I visit New York relatively frequently so I like to keep my eye on the new shows on Broadway. A few years ago I heard the song Waving Through A Window, instantly downloaded the rest of the Dear Evan Hansen album, read the storyline and bam one of my favourite musicals happened! So imagine how thrilled I was to discover my favourite musical has recently been released as a novel!

Dear Evan Hansen tells the story of Evan. Evan has anxiety and in order to try help him his mum sends him to a therapist to attempt to get him get out of his shell. One of his therapy tasks is to write daily letters to himself to try encourage himself, hence the title Dear Evan Hansen! One day one of Evans letters ends up in the wrong hands and thanks to this, Evan finds himself accidentally pretending he was best friends with his classmate Connor, who killed himself due to depression. Now, Evan isn’t living in the shadows anymore as everyone wants to know about his friendship with Connor. However the longer the lie goes on the deeper wrapped in the web of the lies Evan finds himself.

The book was everything I expected it to be and more. Like previously mentioned I’ve never actually seen the musical so I was absolutely thrilled to be able to read the entirety of the story. It’s also interesting as you so easily see where the songs fit into the story even when it’s in book form.

I relate so much with Evan Hansen as a character which is probably the reason I am so obsessed with this story. I feel like everything that Evan does I would’ve done exactly the same thing in his position. I believe he really does mean well when he starts his lie then he just ends up rolling with it and I find myself sympathising with him more and more as the story goes on. The story could so easily have been a story about an annoying kid who wants to be liked so lies about being friends with someone at school who committed suicide and you just don’t care what happens to him as he lied. But it’s not, Evan bumbles through his lie and his intentions are always good. I just can’t explain how wonderful of a character Evan is but I’m sure if you read the book / see the musical you will love him too and find yourself in tears as you go further into his story.

Dear Evan Hansen is probably the most important story on stage at the moment due to its focus on multiple mental health issues throughout. It presents mental health in a realistic way and I think we need more of this. It doesn’t make fun or glamourise mental illnesses, it’s all very real and I’m sure many people can relate to the story.

Regardless of if you like musicals or not this books so great as a stand-alone. If you know nothing about the musical, it doesn’t matter. It’s the same wonderful story just in a book without the songs. I honestly think you should make this book one of your must reads of 2018. Also if you read this book and love it, you have to listen to the songs! They really just completely add to your reading experience as you imagine the songs in parts as your reading.

Synopsis –

Dear Evan Hansen, 

Today’s going to be an amazing day and here’s why… 

When a letter that was never meant to be seen by anyone draws high school senior Evan Hansen into a family’s grief over the loss of their son, he is given the chance of a lifetime: to belong. He just has to stick to a lie he never meant to tell, that the notoriously troubled Connor Murphy was his secret best friend. 

Suddenly, Evan isn’t invisible anymore–even to the girl of his dreams. And Connor Murphy’s parents, with their beautiful home on the other side of town, have taken him in like he was their own, desperate to know more about their enigmatic son from his closest friend. As Evan gets pulled deeper into their swirl of anger, regret, and confusion, he knows that what he’s doing can’t be right, but if he’s helping people, how wrong can it be? 

No longer tangled in his once-incapacitating anxiety, this new Evan has a purpose. And a website. He’s confident. He’s a viral phenomenon. Every day is amazing. Until everything is in danger of unraveling and he comes face to face with his greatest obstacle: himself. 

A simple lie leads to complicated truths in this big-hearted coming-of-age story of grief, authenticity and the struggle to belong in an age of instant connectivity and profound isolation.

First Post

by melissay1, posted in Uncategorised

Wow – didn’t think I’d be writing another introduction post but here goes….Hello, my names Melissa and welcome to my brand new blog!

For those who don’t know I’ve had a blog for the past few years but earlier in the year it started to get overwhelming so I went on a little bit of a hiatus. I found myself saying yes to absolutely everything even when I knew it most certainly wasn’t going to be something I liked. I found that writing my blog was becoming less enjoyable and it started to feel like an effort at times, then combined with the fact that I just didn’t have time to read which meant that I then felt like I had nothing to blog about. I love reading books and I don’t think that I’ll ever stop writing up my thoughts about what I read but I want the freedom to write about other things too if I wanted and I just didn’t feel like I could do that on my previous blog. I’ve also definitely learnt my lesson about saying yes to everything too!

I attended Summer In The City back in August and it sparked off my potential interest in tying my blog into a YouTube channel somehow. I need to put more thought into how or what I’d even do but it made sense to have the same username across all platforms so naturally it seemed to tie in perfectly with starting anew.

So here’s onto fresh starts. I’m going to start writing about things I want to about. Yes, I’ll still probably primarily be writing about books I’ve read but I’m looking forward to writing about other things I want to as well. As for the YouTube thing, I don’t know if I’d actually be any good at it but its all set up if I ever decide to use it but of course I’ll post if things ever happen on it.

As for now welcome to my blog both new and old readers! New posts hopefully coming on a weekly (ish!) basis!

If anyone would like to follow please check out my new links below –

Twitter

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