As Taylors Swift’s ‘The Eras Tour’ draws to a close, it reflects a tour that saw the release of three new albums – ‘Speak Now (Taylors Version)’, ‘1989 (Taylors Version)’, and ‘The Tortured Poets Department’. The Eras tour has ushered in a new era of the music industry, from its friendship bracelets to its surprise songs.
Following the 2022 release of ‘Midnights’, Swift’s tenth studio album, the Eras Tour was announced as Swift’s first tour since 2018. Fans speculate that Swift chose to do an ‘Eras’ tour instead of a ‘Midnights’ tour due to the lack of tours for the three albums released prior to Midnights (‘Lover’, ‘Folklore’, and ‘Evermore’). ‘Loverfest’ – a tour planned for 2020 in celebration of her 7 studio album, ‘Lover’ – was canceled due to Covid-19, and ‘Folklore’ and ‘Evermore’ never received a tour due to their release falling in the middle of the pandemic. With an ‘eras’ tour, fans got to hear songs from three different albums that they’d never before heard live, along with hits from the rest of Swift’s iconic discography.
The show follows ten distinct eras of Taylor’s career, with the addition of ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ era in early May and, in turn, the consolidation of ‘sister albums’ ‘Folklore’ and ‘Evermore’ sets into one, shorter set. There is a notable absence of Swift’s first album, the self-titled ‘Taylor Swift’ (though affectionately referred to by fans as ‘Debut’) in the setlist, with Swift skipping the era entirely and opting to begin with ‘Lover’ instead. However, the already 3 hour long concert still has lots to offer.
Beginning in Glendale, Arizona on March 17th of 2023, 69,000 fans gathered in State Farm Stadium, with more ‘Tay-gating’ (tailgating) outside. Since then, the Eras tour has been to 5 continents, 22 countries, and garnered more than 1.5 billion dollars in sales, becoming the highest grossing tour of all time – and that’s not counting the money made from 2023’s ‘Eras tour’ concert film or merch sales.
However, many say that their favorite concert merch is the homemade friendship bracelets ‘Swifties’, the name of Taylor Swift’s fan-base, make and trade with each other, often donning song lyrics, album titles, or other Taylor-related iconography such as her lucky number, 13. Drawing inspiration from Midnight’s ‘Your On Your Own Kid[s]’ (Commonly abbreviated as YOYOK), uplifting outro – ‘So make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it, you’ve got no reason to be afraid…’ A song about growing up and fitting in, fans clung to the relatable message and started making the beaded bracelets and trading them amongst other Swifities. Even stadiums have gotten into the trend, passing a giant, rainbow ‘The Eras Tour’ friendship bracelet around North America and displaying it prominently on the stadiums that the eras tour is playing at.
Friendship bracelets aren’t the only thing ‘The Eras Tour’ has made popular- ‘Surprise Song’ time, after ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ era and before ‘Midnights’ on the setlist, features two-to-four acoustic songs handpicked from Swift’s discography that have not been featured on the setlist, including lesser-known songs and even artist features, with artists like Gracie Abrams, Sabrina Carpenter, Jack Antonoff of ‘Bleachers’ and Ed Sheeran all gracing the surprise song stage. With one on guitar and one on piano, the options are endless, particularly with Swift’s implementation of surprise song mash-ups in November of 2023. In that same month, Swift broke her previously established rule that she would not play the same surprise song twice – unless it was from Midnights, in which case it could be played an endless number of times. Swift noted at various shows that she realized she had too many tour dates to play two, entirely new songs at every show, and decided that mashups were a better way to make each show’s surprise songs special.
Further, the surprise song set has also been the home of multiple album announcements, with both ‘Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)’ and ‘1989 (Taylor’s Version)’, both being announced in 2023. It’s seen music videos premiered for the first time, songs that Taylor has never sung before, and its fair share of online publicity, from Tiktok to twitter and everything in between.
Taylor’s implementation of surprise songs has also changed fan expectations at concerts everywhere, with a large setlist no longer being enough to satisfy fans. Artists like Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter have both implemented the surprise song set into their shows, and fans agree that it adds to the experience of being at a show. Sophomore and Eras Tour attendee Zoe Stern says, “I think it’s a really creative way to create more suspense around the tour. Not only did it create something fun for her to do, but it’s fun for people to guess what the surprise songs were gonna be- plus, it’s allowed her to create more music with her mashups.”
As ‘The Eras Tour’ draws to a close, Swifties are anxiously awaiting the final show, the final curtain, the final bow. Yet, the final Eras tour show isn’t signifying the end of a career – just the end of an era.
