Hold Onto The Memories: Reflections Upon The Conclusion Of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour

On 17^th March 2023, fourteen-time Grammy-winning musician, Taylor Alison Swift announced she would be going on tour again, for the first time since November 2018, the conclusion of her ‘Reputation: Stadium Tour’. Since the end of her ‘Reputation’ tour, Swift has released five studio albums: ‘Lover’ (2019), ‘Folklore’ (2020), ‘Evermore’ (2020), and ‘Midnights’ (2022), as well as re-releasing several of her Taylor’s Version, album masters after a legal battle for the rights to her own music. These re-records, released amidst her new albums, were ‘Fearless: Taylor’s Version’ (2021) and ‘Red: Taylor’s Version’ (2021). These albums included remastered versions of songs that were over ten years old, as well as bonus tracks ‘From The Vault’ that had never been released before.

While Swift is a controversial figure in the music industry, due to her immense chart-topping domination, her billionaire status, use of a private jet and carbon footprint, etc. her Eras Tour has been celebrated as an incredible feat. During her 149 show tour, Swift released two more remastered Taylor’s Version albums: ‘Speak Now: Taylor’s Version’ (2023) and ‘1989: Taylor’s Version’(2023), as well as a new thirty-one song album, ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ (2024). Before her European leg of the tour, Swift released ‘The Eras Tour Movie’ (2023), a high-definition recording of her shows in Los Angeles in 2023, so her fans can revisit their time at the show, or, experience the tour firsthand in the cinema, as not every fan was able to acquire tickets, a huge step forward in the name of accessibility, especially in the wake of the controversy over how the tickets for the first leg of her tour were released, and fans’ inability to purchase them for reasonable prices due to re-sellers buying in bulk. This was a fantastic move to ensure fans were able to experience the show, wherever they were.

Swift’s tour has been praised by fans for curating safe spaces for a primarily female audience. Not only was the tour a place where fans could show off their hand-made or customised outfits and merchandise, and dressing up was encouraged. Fans were often seen wearing clothes that paid homage or reference to lyrics, songs, and milestones in Swift’s career or outfits inspired by individual eras. This body-positive, self-love-oriented movement was fantastic to witness at the shows I attended.

But, one can’t mention ‘The Eras Tour’ without mentioning friendship bracelets. After releasing her song ‘You’re On Your Own, Kid’ (2022), in which Swift declares you should “make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it [because] you’ve got no reason to be afraid”, her fans adopted the tradition of crafting bracelets with song lyrics, titles, and references on them to trade among fans during her tour. This was a unique experience for those outside of rave circles where trading bracelets or ‘candi’, with fellow fans en-masse, quickly became an essential part of the concert experience. The desire to trade bracelets among fans ensured that fans arrived at the venue early to share their bracelets, and subsequently, be in the various stadiums to listen to opening acts, giving them exposure they may not have otherwise had. Since supporting Swift on ‘The Eras Tour’, openers including Sabrina Carpenter and Benson Boone have seen an upward trajectory in their own careers.

Taylor Swift has been one of my favourite musicians for over a decade, where I was indoctrinated among ‘Swifties’ in 2012, during her ‘Red’ Era.  I met many amazing friends through our mutual love of her music, and while we couldn’t afford to attend her ‘Reputation’ tour as teens, we didn’t have that same issue when she announced ‘The Eras Tour’.

I was privileged enough to be able to attend the show twice: once in June and for a second time in August, primarily due to the Midnights album pre-sale, where, users that pre-ordered the ‘Midnights’ (2022) album would get an exclusive code to access tickets to ‘The Eras Tour’ before general release. Several of my friends purchased the album, and while one bought four tickets for herself and three friends, myself included, I was able to buy tickets to a show at Wembley, where I saw Swift in concert with my sister.

While I would argue that the Edinburgh show had some flaws, primarily with organisation, communication among stewards etc., as many fans struggled to find their way through the residential area that surrounded Murrayfield Stadium, being directed to one gate by one steward, only to be sent back by another. While this was exceptionally frustrating as a fan, attempting to get to the stadium in time to watch the opening acts, I cannot fault the show in itself. I had a fantastic time, and even while sitting in the top row of seats of the stadium, I found myself so enraptured in the experience, among friends, and other fans.

I also attended the sixth show at Wembley Stadium in August 2024, with my sister, where I traded over one hundred friendship bracelets with other fans via a “lucky dip”, having tipped all my bracelets into an empty bag from the merchandise store, which I acquired in Edinburgh. I was so grateful to see the show and take in the atmosphere. I was there when Swift played ‘I Did Something Bad’ (2017) on the guitar, leading fans to speculate her intent to release ‘Reputation: Taylor’s Version’, one of the two remaining albums she has yet to re-release as of December 2024.

I have attended several shows where musicians play a variety of songs that have been randomly selected, from Fall Out Boy’s ‘So Much For Stardust Tour’ (2023) including a magic eight-ball, which, supposedly, generated random songs for the band to perform to surprise the audience, to ‘My Chemical Romance’, adjusting their set-list with different tracks throughout their tour in 2021, but nothing, in my experience, can compare to the sheer magnitude and anticipation derived from Swift’s ‘surprise songs’.

‘The Eras Tour’ had adopted a loyal following on social media, with fans watching live streams of the concerts to watch Swift play the only unique part of each individual show experience: her acoustic section, where she would play at least one song on the guitar, and another on the piano, before transitioning into her final era of the show: ‘Midnights’ (2022).

Swift’s surprise songs were a crucial element of what made fans continue to follow the tour long before their own show dates, eager to hear whether their favourite songs were still a possibility to hear live, with fans taking to social media at a variety of events to watch fellow fans livestream the acoustic section to see what she played, and whether she combined songs to create vaster, more complex narratives by weaving lyrics from different songs in together to tell new stories. As a fan of Swift’s discography, I hope she intends to release some of these mashups on an album because I bawled when I watched a video on social media of her playing ‘Cassandra’ from ‘The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology’ (2024), mashed up with ‘Mad Woman’ from ‘Folklore’ (2020) and ‘I Did Something Bad’ from ‘Reputation’ (2017), which also happened to be one of my surprise songs.

While fans had encouraged Swift to play a mashup of ‘Mad Woman’ (2020), and ‘Cassandra’ (2024), before the show, with individuals playing their own compositions of what this prospective mashup may sound like, as they did with several other combinations like ‘Untouchable’ (originally released in 2008, re-released on ‘Fearless: Taylor’s Version’ in 2021) with ‘Guilty As Sin’, a song from ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ (2024), and Long Love (originally released in 2010, and re-released in 2023), New Years Day (2017) and The Manuscript, from ‘The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology’ (2024), suspecting it would be the final mashup of the tour. However, hearing Swift’s renditions was a completely different experience. Particularly regarding the mashup of ‘Mad Woman’ (2020), ‘Cassandra’ (2024) and ‘I Did Something Bad’ (2017), which reduced me to a sobbing mess. I was moved by the way she delivered each lyric like a middle finger to those who’d scorned her in the past. It is now one of my favourite surprise song mashups she has done.

Many fans have been ridiculed for their reactions to surprise songs, whether it be because they didn’t know the song, lost their favourite songs to audiences before their show, or simply because they heard a favourite of theirs. I have lost count of the number of videos I saw throughout the tour of fans sobbing on camera during the acoustic section. Truly, this just demonstrates how powerful Swift’s lyrics are, for fans to resonate and react so viscerally to her music.

When I attended Swift’s show in June 2024, I was grateful to get surprise songs I loved, and one of my friends’ all-time favourite songs. The video of his excitement is one of my favourite moments to look back upon. Similarly, in August, when I attended with my sister, I was awestruck when Swift transitioned one of her songs from ‘The Tortured Poets Department’, ‘My Boy Only Breaks His Favourite Toys’ (2024), into one of my favourite songs, ‘Coney Island’ from ‘Evermore’ (2020). I still get choked up when I hear the song, months later.

‘The Eras Tour’ is, as of 2024, the highest-grossing tour to take place, with Swift performing shows in North America, Asia, Europe and Australia. As she takes a much-needed, break from the spotlight, having been on the move consistently for almost two years, I cannot help but be waiting with bated breath for what she does next, but, I for one, have my fingers crossed, for an album of mashups.