Taylor Swift's Rock in Rio Performance in Las Vegas Last Night was All Sparkle, No Substance

Photos via Alivephotography

The 1989 World Tour made its US debut in Vegas this evening at Rock In Rio where Taylor Swift emerged from behind a massive '80s boombox and John Hughes-style lettering. 2015 may as well be 1989, let's face it, and this year, Swifty dictates everything, and she is the old-fashioned exception to every rule. Arriving in Vegas this weekend feels like landing on her turf. Today has seen other acts play Rock In Rio, including Ed Sheeran, Jessie J and Charli XCX, but nobody's pretending this shebang is geared towards anyone other than tonight's headliner. Upon entering the site, staff greet everyone by placing a white bracelet on their wrists saying, “Have a gift! It's from Taylor!” intending to tap into that familiar feeling of intimate connection with the Everygirl who didn't fit in but was going to make an impression regardless. Whether staying for Taylor or not (and many don't, which probably bothers Taylor later on), all attendants would be blinded by their own flashing tag come 11:30pm when Swift took to the stage, welcoming all to New York via the Circus Circus Hotel & Casino across the tarmac.

The focus of tonight's outing is not so much on vocal delivery (which wavers) or lyrical content, it's on Taylor's Olympian heptathlete-like physique. She's trained to hack the demands of an all-dancing two-hour show every night on a tour which kicked off 10 days ago in Japan and is set to jettison her around the globe for the foreseeable future. Via Bob Fosse-like choreographed routines for "New Romantics" and "Blank Space" she demonstrates her muscular tones and bulletproof abs in an array of two-piece shorts-and-bandeau outfits. The former album bonus track contains that brilliant line “You can't see it in my face/But I'm about to play my ace”. You wouldn't have predicted Taylor would be talking about her aspirations to flaunt like Beyonce against Michael Jackson silhouette backdrops. Not that there's anything wrong with wanting to channel the Bey—who doesn't?—but the concentration on Taylor's face reduces her next track "Blank Space" to a leggy routine, devoid of connection, as she cavorts around the stage like a temptress, swinging a golf club and pining for audience involvement on the line “Boys only want love if it's torture” to no avail. Nobody would begrudge Taylor the ability to embrace a growing confidence in her mid-20s, a fantasy to dress fabulous and be The Star. She is! Taylor wants to draw a line under the Swift of yore who dared to try it all (country, pop and dubstep wobbles) and instead establish a homogeneous Pop Star mould with a clear vision and a perma-pout. The problem is, she's no longer making it look easy and her vision doesn't seem that clear.

It was never Taylor's outfits that gave her shine, it was the way she wrote and then sold songs like "We Are Never Getting Back Together" and "Love Story" – both performed here under more adult guises, the former dark and moody like a Victoria's Secret advert – that made her so unique and vital to the landscape. The poetically phrased "Clean" and "I Know Places" are designed to focus more on Taylor's thigh-highs and suspenders. The choreography is so honed, it forgets the humor of the "Shake It Off" music video: someone who can't really dance, like the rest of us. Now that she can actually dance, she feels less on a par.

When Taylor has the opportunity to inject personality, she doles out ready-made anecdotes (“Good evening, my name is Taylor and I love the sight of 50,000 people,” she says to a crowd of at least half that) and memos about the 1989 songwriting process that chime like the bonus material on the deluxe LP. Belters like "Style" and "Bad Blood" make for A grade performances but leave something wanting in the set due to their safe consistency. The success 1989 has yielded should warrant Swift a lease of creative freedom and the craziest flair for excess beyond any of her contemporaries, but Taylor seems to want to keep things traditionally simple. By trying to be Miss Popular with her perfect blonde bob and red lip, she renders herself a little too one-dimensional. That's not the Taylor we've come to know. Where Miley will perform unscripted and ungainly, Gaga will self-sabotage with pretentious art installations, and Katy Perry will make a cultural impact via a dancing human shark, something about Taylor's vision doesn't feel quite right for 2015, particularly after the multi-faceted, high performance of the Red tour. Her main tool here appears to be a catwalk she stalks back and forth throughout the night with a posse of dancers, walking the walk but talking less than normal. The moments during which she seems most happy and comfortable are the Red-like throwbacks to Nashville musicianship and authenticity, as when she invites Ed Sheeran onstage for a duet or strums 'Wonderland' on acoustic guitar.

Maybe it's early tour jitters, or the challenges of this festival set – you certainly hope and believe that there are better displays of the 1989 Tour to come. You also hope for that personal Swift touch she manages to regain in the last three songs. Halfway through "Wildest Dreams" which she delivers at a piano in a gold sparkly jumpsuit, the sound cuts out and Taylor looks briefly despondent. “Well at least you know it's live,” she barks, then delivers her Taylor wink, unleashes a huge smile and goes for it. It's a testament to her ambition and commitment to her crowds, even if lesser at1:30am on a Friday night. That cajoles her into throwing everything she has at "Out Of The Woods." She pummels every last ounce of energy into it, as though the repetitive chorus line “are we out of the woods yet?” is a bit too close to the bone here. It sets her up for a phenomenal "Shake It Off," which achieves lift off a little too late as that catwalk transforms into a crane roaming around the crowd, delivering the first real pop spectacular of the whole set. You feel like she shoulda been getting down to that sick beat for the whole two hours.