Taylor Swift Eras Tour

Image Courtesy of AzCentral 

By Maggiemae Dethlefsen

Twelve time Grammy Award winner, Taylor Swift, began her highly anticipated Eras Tour this past weekend, which was so popular that it crashed the TicketMaster website and sold 2.4 million tickets in one day, breaking the previous record for the most tickets for a concert sold by a single artist. 

Taylor Swift started her Eras Tour in Glendale, Arizona. To commemorate the opening day, Glendale Mayor, Jerry P. Weiers, renamed the city “Swift City” in her honor, which will remain in effect until March 18th.  Swift played a five hour and ten minute concert, with three hours and ten minutes containing songs from her ten albums. 

Swift last went on tour in 2018, and there was much speculation on which album she would choose to start her setlist off with. Many believed that her recently released album, Midnights, would kick off her tour.. Though with Lover (2019) never getting a proper tour debutedue to the pandemic, she started her concert off with “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince”. Swift also plans to sing a different acoustic song in every city she visits while on this tour. 

She has a forty-four track list of songs that spans from classics like “You Belong With Me” to new releases like “Anti-Hero”. Many loved the variety and selection of the set list, thoughthe performance of songs from her  Evermore (2020) album are being questioned. Swift said in a  recent interview” that Evermore was “an album [she] absolutely love[s] despite what some of you say on TikTok.” 

With having all albums present in one concert she really pulled together all the different “Taylor’s” we have seen over the years and presented them as one, which really shows her growth and change as an artist and a person

In conjunction with her opening tour date, Swift released Taylor’s Versions of “Eyes Open”, “Safe & Sound”, “If This Was A Movie,” and “All Of The Girls You Loved Before,”which were released on March 17th at midnight. 

Swift  decided to set the release date to coincide with the year that the album they correlate with came out. This made many Swifite’s who could not be at the opening night of the concert excited to stream these re-released songs, with thousands streaming the material excited to see what Swift planned next. With these new releases many Swifities hope and anticipate a re-release of her 2010 album, Speak Now.. 

Her tour will continue throughout the summer, ending in August 2023. Many who were lucky enough to get tickets wait for the day to see her performance, and millions more await the pictures and videos that are being posted on social media every day.