After so many of the tour’s momentous milestones and events, the U.S. leg of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour has officially come to an end.
Throughout the tour, Swift announced two re-releases of her albums, Speak Now and 1989, gave 100,000 dollar bonuses to her truck drivers, and even had an eight-minute ovation after the performance of her song “Champagne Problems”. Since there have been so many memorable moments throughout the tour, it is necessary to take a deep dive and look into them all.
In Glendale, Arizona, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour began on March 17, 2023. The U.S. leg of the tour lasted for six months, in which Swift would perform a 90-minute set, singing songs from each of her “ERAS” or albums throughout the show, including singing two “surprise songs,” from any album, each night. As opposed to singing songs from one album or the most recently released, Swift performs songs from all of the albums she has ever released, which is what makes this tour so special and unique. She opens her show singing songs from her album Lover, then moves on to Fearless, Evermore, Reputation, Speak Now, RED, Folklore, 1989, and Midnights. The only album not on Swift’s set list is her debut album entitled, Taylor Swift.
Each era comes with a special performance and a selection of speeches in which Swift explains the writing process of certain songs, their meanings, or when and how they were written, as well as interacting with the audience. She received an eight-minute-long ovation after performing one of the most popular songs, “Champagne Problems”, from her album, Evermore. For a brief explanation, this song is about a girlfriend who unexpectedly rejects her proposal from her boyfriend and is looking back at all of the memories she has had with him. This ovation followed a speech Swift gave about how important this song is to her, especially now that she has broken up with her six-year boyfriend, Joe Alwin. especially since it was not a very popular single. Having this much support for a song as meaningful as “Champagne Problems,” a song that was not a very popular single, is a monumental occasion, even for someone as famous as Taylor Swift.
The “Swifties,” Swift’s fanbase name, all dress up in special outfits when going to the concerts. Many will dress up in themed costumes from each of Swift’s eras. For example, wearing sparkly dresses and cowboy boots to embody the Fearless era or an all-black outfit with slick back hair to represent the cover of Swift’s Reputation album. Some incredibly dedicated Swifties wore outfits based on specific lyrics from some of Swift’s most popular songs. No matter if the show is going on through a full-on rainstorm, like in Foxborough, Massachusetts, both Swift and her fans will be singing and dancing in their glittering dresses and boots.
The importance of the outfit curation is that there has never really been a concert of Swift’s that the fans take that much consideration and dedication into, especially something as simple as their outfits. So even though this seemed so inconvenient, it is truly a new height that has been reached for Swift in her performances.
Many of Swift’s crew, who are in charge of transporting the stage, have to go to the next location in advance since the stage she performs on takes weeks to set up. So while Swift is performing in one city, there is already a stage getting set up in another city. According to the New York Post, “Closer to the date, a team of an estimated 90 trucks pulls into the venue to construct the sprawling scene[…]” With this many trucks delivering and assembling this stage, these workers must be putting an incredible amount of time and effort into their jobs. Knowing how much time goes into helping her with these amazing shows, Swift gives nearly all of her stage crew a $100,000 bonus each. This insane expense that Swift’s amazing and dedicated crew received added up to nearly $55 million near the end of the tour.
Sophomore Matthew Navarro gives his insight on the generous gesture made by Swift and says, “I feel like people don’t take into consideration how hard these workers[…]how much hard work they put in. It’s just behind the scenes, you know, but they still do a lot of work and I feel like it deserves it,”.
Even if you weren’t lucky enough to get tickets to the tour, many attending fans live-streamed their experience through social media. Just because you aren’t in the city Swift is performing in, it is still very possible to get almost the whole experience from the comfort of your own home. This experience sharing shows how dedicated the fan base is to Taylor Swift and how in awe she leaves her fans. Fans are willingly sharing their experience of their concerts which shows how well Swift can connect to her fans and how well she performs.
North senior Hailey Hacker, who attended the Eras Tour, gives her perspective about the atmosphere at the concert, “Compared to the other concerts I’ve been to, I think that that one has been, by far, the most [like] positive, positive environment. And I met so many amazing people and it’s not just the performance in itself, it was [like] the atmosphere that was created,”.
Since getting out of her contract with her former producers, Taylor Swift has been rerecording and releasing her albums that are considered, “stolen,” since she was no longer getting all of the profits from the streams and purchases of her songs. Swift has already released RED (Taylor’s Version) and Fearless (Taylor’s Version) but on this tour, she has since announced two more rereleases. On May 5, 2023, Swift announced that the re-recorded version of her third studio album, Speak Now, would be released on July 7th of the same year. Along with the original 16 songs in that album, she also released five unique tracks, “From the Vault,” which were previously unreleased.
Not only did Swift announce and release Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), but on August 9, 2023, she also announced the rerelease of her first official pop album 1989. Leading up to the official announcement, fans were skeptical about whether or not it would be released based on clues Swift had been dropping for months now. Fans were especially surprised on the final night of the first leg of the tour when Swift replaced her usual costumes with ones in the classic shade of sky blue that embodies the 1989 aesthetic. Sure enough, before performing the surprise songs on August 9, Taylor announced that 1989 (Taylor’s Version) would be released on October 27, 2023, exactly nine years after the original release of the first album.
With the first leg of the international tour beginning August 24th in Mexico, fans are sure there are more surprises and iconic moments to come. So whether you watch from a live stream or get tickets to the shows, enjoy the moments and have the time of your life with her.
