Along with Beyoncé, Taylor Swift has owned this year, concert tour-wise. But there are all kinds of reasons why you probably didn’t see her Swift-ness in person: financial, geographical, financial, philosophical … financial.
Thursday morning, Swift found a way to skirt at least two of those issues by announcing Taylor Swift: The Eras Concert Film, which will play in AMC Theaters across North America starting Oct. 13. The location closest to the Milwaukee area that’ll show the film is the AMC Mayfair Mall 18 in Wauwatosa. I can’t imagine why, like the actual tour itself, you’d need to travel any sort of distance to see this thing, but just in case here are the other AMC Theaters around Wisconsin:
- Johnson Creek — AMC Classic Johnson Creek 12
- Fitchburg — AMC Fitchburg 18
- Baraboo — AMC Classic Desert Star 15
- Manitowoc — AMC Classic Manitowoc 10
The film is being presented in a couple different formats, although it appears the IMAX showings are pretty much sold out already. However, there are still plenty of seats available for the general digital presentation, with showtimes currently available through Nov. 5. If you want to score a ticket, the price of admission is $19.89 (get it?) for adults and $13.13 (also an insider-ish reference) for kids and seniors.
Because we’re a full-service institution, we thought you could use a few other concert films and music-adjacent content to enjoy as you count down the days, hours and minutes to The Eras movie premiere — starting with a couple options accompanied by a little in-house content.
‘The Last Waltz’ and ‘Summer of Soul’
The timeline for this duo is a little weird. Chronologically, the Summer of Soul concert came first in 1969, followed by The Last Waltz concert in 1976, followed by The Last Waltz film in 1978, followed by the Summer of Soul film in 2021. Most importantly, the Cinebuds episodes discussing both films came out in July and November 2021.
The Last Waltz is typically the first concert film that comes to mind when people discuss the topic because, for many, the all-star show centered around The Band’s final performance is the gold standard. That includes former 88Nine music director Justin Barney, who waxed rhapsodic about it during his time as a Cinebud. It’s available to rent on Prime Video or watch for free with an MGM+ subscription, which I didn’t know existed until this moment.
Summer of Soul, a passion project from Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, is a more recent entry that also received all kinds of plaudits upon its release. The film presented footage from the Harlem Cultural Festival that sat relatively unused for more than 50 years, giving new audiences a chance to enjoy a mind-blowing performance lineup that included Stevie Wonder, Sly & The Family Stone, B.B. King and Nina Simone. Check it out on Hulu.
‘Miss Americana’ and ‘Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions’
I’d say these are for the Swifties, but I don’t count myself among their ranks and still deeply enjoyed both Taylor Swift docs. I found Miss Americana (available on Netflix) more slight, with a runtime of just 85 minutes that went by awfully fast. But the flying time likely had something to do with how interesting it is to get a glimpse into a life you can’t possibly imagine. If you like the format, Billie Eilish’s The World’s a Little Blurryon Apple TV+ is another good one.
I got way more enjoyment out of The Long Pond Studio Sessions, a pandemic-era Disney+ project focused on the first (and so far the only) Swift album that really connected with me. I’m a sucker for explorations of the creative process, which the film combines with performances of every track from Folklore.
Swift is the main draw, of course, but shares the screen with the album’s co-producers, Jack Antonoff (also of Bleachers) and Aaron Dessner (from The National). Justin Vernon even makes a remote guest appearance, and more Justin Vernon is a good thing.
‘Homecoming’ and ‘Lemonade’
So far, Beyoncé hasn’t announced plans to bring her “Renaissance World Tour” to screens. For now, we can turn to these two outstanding entries.
Homecoming is the true concert film, capturing the Queen’s performance at Coachella in 2018 — shockingly, the first time a black woman ever headlined the festival. Beyoncé wrote, directed and executive produced the project, a 137-minute feature that included more than 200 performers and demonstrated, asThe Guardian’s Jake Nevins put it, “not only Beyoncé’s reverence for her forerunners, but her own by-now-unequivocal stature in the pantheon of Black American greatness.”
Lemonade takes the visual-album approach and is a little harder to come by, with it seemingly only available on Tidal at this point. If you have access to the service, you can watch what was originally considered a companion piece to Beyoncé’s 2016 album of the same name but for many became the definitive version of Lemonade.
Many, many other options
For fear of going on too long, we’ll add this list of other generally well-thought-of concert films that should give you plenty to chew on, whether you’re a Swiftie, a member of the BeyHive or just someone who digs music. Most of these are only available to rent, and the first one is coming back to theaters soon, but you might get lucky with a couple on streaming services:
- Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense
- The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights
- Led Zeppelin: The Song Remains the Same
- Madonna: Truth or Dare
- Queen: Hungarian Rhapsody – Live in Budapest
- Rock the Bells
- The Rolling Stones: Gimme Shelter
- Prince: Sign 'o' the Times
- Soul Power
- Aretha Franklin: Amazing Grace
