The Era’s Tour - Taylor’s Ultimate Gift To Her Fans.

Written by Serena Yang

Photos by TAS Rights Management

June 16th, 2023

Pittsburg, PA @ Acrisure Stadium

The most anticipated tour of Taylor Swift’s career has arrived and landed in Pittsburgh - the Eras Tour is a 3 hour long marathon of not just a performance, but also a celebration of each chapter of her discography told through a 44 song setlist split into 9 eras, excluding her debut. Taylor’s concert on June 16 in Pittsburgh marks the 34th stop of her sold-out 52-show American tour, estimated to gross up to $1.5 billion according to Forbes.

Only a Goliath in the industry of Taylor’s scale could pull off this feat, requiring millions of dollars, a talented team of professionals and endless hours of training. However the true magic of the Eras Tour relies on her connection with her fans, which she has been fostering for the last 17 years of her career. Following her music for that long, there is no escaping the sense that we are growing up along with her as we listen to her maturing perspectives on her experiences - from her songs about yearning over a highschool crush, to healing from heartbreak in her 20’s, to introspection of her personal flaws and insecurities and to the struggles she has faced in her career. Whilst introducing “Lover”, Taylor monologues: “So here’s what’s going to happen, you and I are going to go on a little adventure tonight, and we’re going to be traveling back in time for the last 17 years of music that I’ve been lucky enough to make and you’ve been generous enough to care about. We’re going to be doing this one era at a time, Pittsburgh. And here’s the thing: these songs that you’re about to hear, they may have started out being about something that happened to me in my life - when I was 14, or 20, or 26. But here’s my goal: after tonight when you hear these songs, I hope you’ll think about the memories we made here tonight.”

Hours before doors even opened, the blocks surrounding Acrisure Stadium in downtown Pittsburgh had been taken over by fans donning sequins, rhinestones, cowboy boots and meticulously handmade costumes based off of Taylor’s looks throughout her career. Though dressing up as their idol has always been a tradition for her concerts, the Era’s Tour saw the birth of a new ritual - trading friendship bracelets. This fan project was originally inspired by the song “You’re On Your Own Kid” from Taylor’s newest original album Midnights, where she sings: “So make the friendship bracelets/ Take the moment and taste it”, and has since been solidified into Swiftie canon. Fans showed up with beaded bracelets stacked up from wrists to elbows or hanging in bunches from carabiner clips, each reading a song, album, lyric or fandom inside joke. Bracelets were traded amongst each other and passed out to security and merchandise booth staff as everyone eagerly awaited entry. A strong sense of community engulfed the stadium as there was a collective understanding of the fact that we have all waited in exhilaration for months for this day to come, and it was finally here.

Singer-songwriters Gracie Abrams and Girl In Red opened the concert, both thanking Taylor earnestly and citing her as an inspiration for their music and careers. Gracie delivered heartfelt performances of her diaristic tracks “Where do we go now?”, “21”, and “I know it won’t work” whilst celebrating the release of the deluxe edition of her debut album, Good Riddance. Girl In Red rocked out to “bad idea!” and “i wanna be your girlfriend”, as well as “we fell in love in october” followed by its continuation, “October Passed Me By”.

The first few chords of Lady Gaga’s “Applause” hits the speakers and within seconds the entire stadium are on their feet cheering, knowing that this was the last song on the pre-show playlist before a 3 minute countdown appears on the screen to Lesly Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me”. Her dancers emerged wearing parachute-like capes blown up by streams of air, showing visuals of purple-pink sunsets as they billowed across the stage - an ode to Swift’s canceled Lover Fest, her planned 2020 tour in which she intended to perform the Lover album under summer sunsets across America, but was ultimately scrapped due to the pandemic. The night opened with “Miss Americana And The Heartbreak Prince”: “It’s been a long time coming” she sings, her first words to her crowd. And a long time it has been, as this marks her first tour in 5 years, in which she has managed to release 4 original albums and 2 rerecords of her masters since. Following the chorus intro of “Miss Americana And The Heartbreak Prince'', Taylor immediately jumps into “Cruel Summer”, a unanimous favorite from Lover which never got to be performed before the Eras Tour. She finishes the song with her bicep flexed, giving it a kiss as she addresses the crowd: “You’re making me feel like I get to play a sold out show for 72,000 people in this stadium tonight. I guess what I’m trying to say is that you’re making me feel like I’m the man!” Putting on a crystal blazer, she acted out the character of a domineering egomaniac in an office stage set for “The Man”, a song where she plays with the idea of how her career would have panned out had she been a man. Stripping back the intense production, she finishes the era alone on stage with the vulnerable “The Archer”, asking “Who could ever leave me darling?/ Who could stay?” Pointing to the crowd, she answers her own question with a reassuring conviction: “You could stay”.

Fearless followed suit as Taylor emerged back on stage in a silver rhinestone tassel dress, twirling across the stage in glee as she strummed her equally bedazzled guitar. “Pittsburgh, are you ready to go back to highschool with me?” she asked; the crowd roared back an undeniable “YES” in anticipation for “You Belong with Me” and “Love Story”.

Pine trees rose from the stage in preparation for Evermore, an era marked by melancholia in its lyrics and sound. Evermore is her second pandemic album, and in her own words, a sister to the Grammy-winning record, Folklore. Dressed in long green capes, she and her dancers delivered an enthralling performance of “Willow”, portraying witches performing a ritual and successfully rendering the mellow folk song into a powerful stadium rocker. Fans lit up their phone flashlights, casting a sea of stars across the stadium for Taylor’s touching tribute to her late grandmother, “Marjorie”. Marjorie Finlay’s operatic vocals rang out, responding to Taylor’s line: “And if I didn’t know better/ I’d think you were singing to me now”. A collective emotional purge was most definitely felt during “Champagne Problems”, a song widely regarded as having one of Taylor’s best bridges. Madness ensued as the entire stadium screamed in unison “She would’ve made such a lovely bride/ “What a shame she’s fucked in the head” they said”.

Reputation was a high energy set from start to finish, beginning with the thundering bass of “...Ready For It?”. Taylor belted the high note of the “Don’t Blame Me” bridge flawlessly atop a rising platform as her guitarist Paul Sidoti shredded a solo on the electric guitar. She then gave a cheeky reimagined performance of “Look What You Made Me Do”, where she taunted her dancers who were dressed in her old looks and trapped in glass cases. We finally got to hear “The old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now/ Why?/ Oh! Cause she’s dead!” satisfyingly straight from Taylor’s mouth, as during the Reputation tour a video of Tiffany Haddish delivering the line was played instead.

Unfortunately for Speak Now fans, “Enchanted” was the only track that made the cut for the Eras Tour setlist. If it makes you feel better though, we are still being fed the rerecording plus five unreleased vault tracks shortly on July 7th! Though brief, Taylor made the most of this chapter as she belted out the wistful ballad in a fairytale-like ball gown, as her dancers waltzed around her.

The Red sector of the night opened with “22”, during which a lucky young fan was chosen and brought to the front of the stage. Taylor handed her the 2012-reminiscent black hat, and the little girl excitedly gave a friendship bracelet back. Following the beloved singles “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” and “I Knew You Were Trouble”, Taylor asks the crowd: “There was one more song from the Red era I was hoping to play for you… if you happen to have 10 minutes to spare?”, of course referring to “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)”. The beauty of “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” that sets it as a highlight of the concert is how it represents a reclamation of a narrative. Not only does the extended time allow for further reflection and perspective of the relationship in Taylor’s personal life that inspired the song, but the rerecording itself signifies the autonomy as an artist that Taylor has fought for and earned in her career. And only she could have a stadium go from wild dancing to therapeutic sobbing within minutes - serious emotional whiplash.

A mossy cabin was erected against the backdrop of a moonlit forest, entering the Folklore era. Taylor delivered a yearning and nostalgic performance of “The 1”, followed by “Betty” with her backing band on stage with her - their chemistry as an ensemble indisputable. Her flowy green gown fluttered behind her as she twirled back and forth across the stage during “August”, followed by the emotionally charged apex of “Illicit Affairs”. Though Taylor introduced Folklore as a set of made-up stories she wrote as a form of escapism from the pandemic and a break from the typical autobiographical nature of her songwriting, “My Tears Ricochet” is an outlier. This eerie and sorrowful track outlets her personal feelings of betrayal towards her former record label CEO, Scott Borchetta, regarding his sale of her masters. Followed by her dancers in black dresses as if in a funeral procession, she belts: “And I still talk to you/ When I’m screaming at the sky/ And when you can’t sleep at night/ You hear my stolen lullabies” - a cathartic performance of a song written in a time where it was unknown whether it could ever be played in front of a crowd.

The set felt a 180° change as the stage transformed yet again for 1989, the 80’s synth-pop album characterized by its brutal honesty and dauntlessness, the opposite of Folklore’s gentle whimsical fantasies. The cabin in the woods transformed into a neon skyline as Taylor and her dancers strutted down the catwalk to the pulsating “Style” guitar riff. The stadium erupted into a full blown dance party for “Shake It Off”, one of the biggest hits of Taylor’s career. She and her dancers wielded neon golf clubs during “Blank Space” as they smashed a car projected on the screen, a reference to the iconic music video in which she portrays a satirized obsessive girlfriend. The audience then felt the heat from an impressive pyrotechnics show during “Bad Blood”, when columns of fire shot into the sky - most definitely searing a couple eyebrows in the process.

The concert had now reached the point where fans watching from home start scrambling to find live streams and refreshing the tour update accounts they follow on social media as she was about to play two acoustic surprise songs on the guitar and piano. The rule is that each song only gets to be performed one time for the entire tour (unless she messes them up), so each fan has a lottery chance to hear their favorite song that didn’t make the main setlist. The crowd held their breath as she introduced “Mr. Perfectly Fine”, a previously unreleased vault track from Fearless (Taylor’s Version), admitting that it should’ve made the original album. Jumping straight into a gloomy minor piano chord progression, she played “The Last Time” next, a deep cut heartbreak duet from Red, originally recorded with Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody. Taylor is the rare kind of performer who possesses the ability to energize an entire stadium with just her voice and an acoustic guitar, with the same electricity as when she is backed up by her band, dancers and light shows - making each person in a crowd of 72,000 feel as though she is singing just for them. Transitioning into the final era, Midnights, she dives into an opening on the stage floor as visuals of her swimming up the catwalk are projected. Waves crashed up the walls and revealed dreamlike lavender clouds as Taylor reappeared at the back of the stage, wearing a purple fur coat and sequined T-shirt dress.

The last stretch of the concert started with the sultry “Lavender Haze” and lead single “Anti-Hero”. After a quick costume change behind her dancers’ umbrellas during “Midnight Rain”, a song reminiscing about a relationship she left due to her career ambitions, she revealed a dazzling navy blue bodysuit worn underneath the previous costume. The revenge fantasy “Vigilante Shit” was performed to a chair choreography clearly influenced by the 1972 musical, Cabaret. Taylor then relieved the tension with the playful and self-assured dance track “Bejeweled” and closed the night with “Karma”, featuring a firework show and confetti - a grand conclusion however still managing to leave the crowd wanting more.

As we dive back into her musical archives, we are reminded not only of how far Taylor has come, but also with where we’ve been alongside her as well - the times we’ve blasted “You Belong With Me” in our cars screaming along, the times we danced to “Shake It Off” with our best friends on a girls night out, the times we bawled our eyes out with “All Too Well” as our only comfort, and all those moments in between. This is a career defining concert where she gets to flex her charm and endurance as a performer, while catching up on new music released during the pandemic and revisiting her classics. The Eras Tour is a triumphant thank you to her fans who have supported her all these years, and solidifies her dedication to them.

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