Montclair's Bob Feinberg watches daughter Lily and Taylor Swift grow up

I took my 12-year-old daughter Lily to Taylor Swift's "RED Tour" performance at Newark's Prudential Center, prepared to be disappointed. Lily and I had together discovered Taylor Swift some four years ago, when Lily was 8, in the midst of the incredible success of Swift's album, "Fearless." That album brought Swift crossover success and launched her first headline tour, where Lily and I were first wowed by her. That night, four years ago, we listened and sang together shamelessly to Swift's beguiling "Love Story," "You Belong with Me," and "Fearless," locked arm-in-arm.

PHOTO COURTESY OF BOB FEINBERG

Bob Feinberg bonds with daughter Lily at a Taylor Swift concert.

For me, the years from 8 to 12 for Lily had gone by incredibly quickly, and so much had changed. Our reading bedtime stories, playing games and doing art projects together had morphed into Lily going to sleep-away camp in Maine for entire summers, prepping for bat mitzvah parties, and texting friends unseen. Taylor Swift, I feared, had changed as well: too many short-lived celebrity relationships begetting too many song-inspiring break-ups; too many magazine covers; too many endorsement deals. Perhaps this once-endearing and inspiring young singer/songwriter had reached her expiration date? Perhaps Lily had outgrown the experience. I couldn't have been more wrong on both counts.

The Taylor Swift of our "Fearless" experience was al! l cowboy boots and sparkly dresses; her music, love songs that were (according to "Rolling Stone" magazine) seemingly "literally ripped from a suburban girl's diary." Each spoke to girls of Lily's age range (tweens and teens) and caught on with their older siblings and parents as well.

With the 2012 release of "RED," things began to seem different with Swift, just as they seemed different with Lily. The album abandoned any pretense of "country," and instead showcased Swift's forays into pop, dubstep, and heartland rock. Gone, too, were the cowboy boots, sundresses and tousled blonde locks, replaced instead with haute couture gowns and stylized outfits, bangs and straightened hair. Lily, as well, had begun selecting "grown up" outfits for her parties with camp friends. Like Taylor, Lily was straightening her curly hair for these get-togethers.

Hence my concern as Lily and I entered the Prudential Center for RED. But once Swift and her band took the stage, I remembered why I had become so entranced by this so young, so talented woman, and how her music and her message so moved fathers and daughters.

Swift sang and spoke to her mostly young, mostly female audience (plus their parents) and they listened and sang along with her. She allowed a montage of home videos to be shown, depicting her on an almost yearly basis from infancy to young adulthood. Her voice was strong and certain. Her pauses to look over the adoring crowd were not awestruck, as they were on the "Fearless" tour, but assured and appreciative.

But as much as I kept my eyes on the action on stage, I spent much of the night watching Lily, holding up her illuminated, heart-shaped "TS" sign bedecked with pictures of Swift, singing every lyric and bouncing along with the music, beaming and hugging me with joy. And no matter how many boys Swift has dated; no matter how many products she has endorsed; no matter how she wears her hair or the length of her skirt - it's this ability of Swift's to bring together 13,000 people in ! downtown ! Newark in two solid hours of joy, that makes me believe in the continued vitality of her message and the continued connection between one middle-aged father and his 12-year-old daughter. Go to one of Swift's "RED" performances and bring your daughter, and Swift will make a believer of you, as well.

Bob Feinberg lives in Montclair. He is the co-founder and chairman of the Montclair Film Festival.