As the observe’s hazy opening synth-pop beats blasted via State Farm Stadium, you possibly can hear the gasps, with simultaneous shouts of “OH MY GOD!” barely heard above the ecstatic mayhem (and in some circumstances, heaving sobs) among the many practically 70,000 in attendance. Swift, resplendent in a shimmering bejeweled silver bodysuit and matching knee-high boots, beamed on the crowd, as a result of she knew precisely what she was doing.
Swift followers consider that, in a parallel universe, “Cruel Summer” (the craving anthem on her 2019 album, “Lover,” a few steamy and poisonous relationship, with a refrain that calls for you sing-scream alongside) was destined to be the track of the summer season of 2020, launched as a single as Swift deliberate to embark on a collection of festivals known as Lover Fest. Obviously, the worldwide bummer of 2020 occurred as a substitute. Yet the obsession with “Cruel Summer” persevered, particularly as a result of Swift had by no means carried out it dwell.
So this wasn’t only a track. For many, this was a stinging, unconscious reminder of how a lot we misplaced and what may have been. It was additionally a second of pure, delirious pleasure — not solely due to the fun of listening to a beloved track dwell for the primary time, but additionally as a result of it’s clear that even some of the highly effective celebrities on the planet had felt all of that, too. It doesn’t appear to be a coincidence that on the high of her first present on her Eras Tour — 52 dates of sold-out stadiums — she needed to select up proper the place she’d left off earlier than the world shut down.
“I don’t know how to process all of this and the way that it’s making me feel right now,” Swift instructed the stadium when the track was over, her voice barely shaking. Later, she added: “I’m really, really, really overwhelmed, and I’m trying to keep it together all night.”
“Trying to keep it together” has not often utilized to the 33-year-old Swift, who, nearing the tip of a second decade as an expert musician, has ascended to a uncommon, glorified standing as a once-in-a-generation pop star. She has no chill. After rising to fame with songs about her awkward, unpopular teen years, she now embraces cringe and earnestness. That’s a part of the draw for her legion of followers, who see her as one in every of them. After Ticketmaster melted down throughout gross sales for the Eras Tour, the mum or dad firm’s chairman went on the defensive by pointing to the intense demand, claiming that the variety of individuals attempting to purchase tickets “could have filled 900 stadiums.”
The Swifties shelled out lots of — typically 1000’s — of {dollars} for tickets and journey and descended on Glendale this weekend, decided to make the usually harrowing technique of ticket-buying a distant reminiscence. The Phoenix suburb, which just lately hosted the Super Bowl, may hardly comprise its pleasure. The mayor declared it will quickly change its title to “Swift City,” and digital indicators on the freeway inspired secure driving with Swift puns: “CUT OFF? DON’T GET BAD BLOOD. SHAKE IT OFF.” “RECKLESS DRIVING? YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN.”
But that was nothing in comparison with the electrical power surrounding the stadium. To be a Taylor Swift fan is to be taught to grasp the clues and secret messages that could possibly be embedded in each lyric, public remark and social media submit, irrespective of how opaque. To be a Taylor Swift fan is to at all times come prepared, which incorporates devising the proper outfit to put on to a live performance, with limitless choices bestowed by the singer herself, who selected a tour theme, “eras,” that celebrates her previous and current.
Being within the crowd was like being in a power subject the place all pretenses are gone; Swift’s music covers the spectrum of bubble-gum pop (which she refers to as “glitter gel pen lyrics”) to deep introspective poetry, and her live shows are a spot the place you may dance or cry to both. Swift has laid naked her personal insecurities and feelings over 10 studio albums and greater than 200 songs. Here, in her presence and amongst each other, followers turn out to be their truest selves.
Scanning the gang, you possibly can see numerous sequins and bejeweled skirts and jackets, an homage to the “1989” period. There have been additionally darkish blue attire with stars for “Midnights”; pink coronary heart sun shades, a black bowler hat and a T-shirt studying, “Not a lot going on at the moment,” a shout-out to the “22” music video; darkish lipstick and black leotards as a tribute to “Reputation”; lyrics scribbled down individuals’s arms in marker, one thing Swift used to do earlier than each live performance; and No. 13 painted on palms, one other former Swift custom, from when she was beginning out as a rustic star.
“My inspiration is the Red Tour, one of Taylor’s iconic outfits, and I just wanted to re-create it,” mentioned Giacomo Benavides, a 26-year-old content material creator dressed like a circus ringleader who traveled from Peru for the present.
Some have been much more particular: Olivia Jackter of Tucson, 26, wore a traffic-light get-up that displayed the phrase “I don’t know,” referring to a lyric from the track “Death By a Thousand Cuts.” Would non-Swifties perceive it? Of course not. Did that matter? Of course not. “This was going to be my costume for Lover Fest. I’ve been waiting for this for years,” Jackter mentioned.
A bunch of 20-something ladies hooked up plastic Easter eggs to white T-shirts with pictures of a few of their favourite “Easter eggs” and hints that Swift has dropped over time. One man wearing a cat costume as Swift’s latest pet, Benjamin. Two ladies whooped excitedly once they walked by one another in a line for meals and noticed that they wore matching floral attire much like what Swift wore to the 2021 Grammy Awards.
Another widespread theme was “All Too Well,” the searing breakup ballad that just lately obtained a second life when Swift launched the up to date 10-minute model. Lots of followers wore outfits displaying these lyrics. Ivan Hernandez of Phoenix sported a blue T-shirt that learn, “Where’s the scarf, Jake?” — a reference to the track’s supposed topic, Swift’s ex-boyfriend Jake Gyllenhaal, and the lyric that implies that he swiped her scarf.
“[My son] wanted to go to the concert, and he said, ‘Let’s wear outfits,’ and I was like, ‘Well, I’m not going to wear an outlandish outfit,’” mentioned Hernandez, 46, whose 13-year-old son, Eli, was carrying an Eras Tour shirt they’d purchased on the merchandise stand Saturday afternoon earlier than Swift’s second present. “So I just went online and started looking for something about ‘All Too Well,’ and this is the one that came up.”
Swift, who misses nothing, praised everybody for his or her effort from the stage.
“You have really outdone yourselves, guys. The way that you decided to show up to this concert, you really, really decided to show up,” she mentioned, noting that she noticed individuals dressed as mirror balls (from the track “Mirrorball”); willow timber (from “Willow”); and “sexy babies” (from “Anti-Hero” — and too sophisticated to clarify). “I have seen, like, really amazing, specific visual representations of lyrics or weird online inside jokes that we have.”
“I was thinking about tonight and how special this is,” she added. “You have led me to believe, by you being here, that it’s special for you, too, so it’s really nice that it’s mutual.”
Swift’s unusually shut relationship together with her followers began again when she was a rustic artist, a style by which singers are supposed to consider listeners as their friends. Swift at all times went a step past, chatting with followers on Myspace again earlier than Nashville executives even knew what that was, and that connection has continued to this present day.
In live performance, Swift referred to the journey that she and her followers have taken collectively, like they’re a household. (The “four new members of the family,” she mentioned, are the 4 albums she has launched since her final tour.) She made no secret of the truth that she screens followers’ social media exercise, even dryly noting that her 2020 document “Evermore,” is “an album I absolutely love, despite what some of you say on TikTok.” (People on the platform are satisfied that “Evermore” is her “forgotten child.”)
This is all why her bond together with her fandom stays so robust. She related early on to fellow teenage women who inferred from society that their crushes and emotions and goals have been foolish, solely to seek out somebody in Swift who took them critically and who may articulate, in songwriting, what they didn’t even know they have been feeling.
“By the time she’s done living through something and writing about it and releasing music, I’m living through it,” mentioned Briana McReynolds, 32, of Phoenix, who confirmed up in a T-shirt coated in lyrics, in addition to a purple streak in her hair to characterize “Lavender Haze,” Swift’s newest single. Her greatest pal, Chris, accompanied her to the live performance as an “emotional support Swiftie.” (“I’m doing my best,” he mentioned.)
“She’s just accidentally kind of written the soundtrack for my life,” McReynolds mentioned. “She’s matured with all of us, or we’ve matured with her. So no matter what age I am, she can totally sing my heart.”
Caitlin O’Connor, 32, of San Diego got here to the present together with her mother; they’ve seen each Swift tour collectively for the final 15 years, and O’Connor makes certain to go a number of instances.
“You don’t need therapy; you need Taylor Swift songs,” O’Connor mentioned. Swift’s live shows, she defined, “are my happy place, and there’s nothing else like it. It’s the most natural high you could get in your whole life.” On her arm, she has a tattoo of lyrics from Swift’s “Treacherous”: “All we are is skin and bone, trained to get along.”
“I love that line. Really, at the core, everybody is human,” she mentioned. “And that’s also the thing with Taylor Swift concerts: Everybody is really nice. … You bond over something immediately.”
Swift is very conscious of the world she’s constructed, and he or she doesn’t shrink back from it. In a surprisingly direct admission, whereas introducing the track “Mirrorball,” from her 2020 album “Folklore” throughout an acoustic set, she reiterated to the gang simply how intensely she’s missed them over the previous a number of years.
“I was thinking about how one of the songs that I wrote with you in mind during the pandemic was one of the first songs I wrote on ‘Folklore,’ and it was me writing about how badly I craved the connection that I feel from the care that you have directed my way,” she mentioned. “I was trying to think of a sort of eloquent way to say that I love you and I need your attention all the time.”
The stadium quieted as she strummed and sang.
“I’ve never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try; I’m still on that trapeze, I’m still trying everything to keep you looking at me. ’Cause I’m a mirror ball. … I’ll show you every version of yourself tonight.”
And though she requested the members of the gang for his or her consideration, she didn’t have to; it was already there, and it at all times can be.
