For those still receiving their news delayed on paper, Taylor Swift is touring again after five years. The Eras Tour is making its way throughout the United States this summer before Swift jets off to perform internationally for the next year. We managed to snag coveted tickets in Kansas City to report back to the Swifites unable to attend due to the massively high demand, the religious experience that is the Eras Tour.
Kansas City received a nearly six-hour experience including opening acts, Gracie Abrahms and MUNA. While both are established artists, their sets before the main event confirmed their inevitable success. In Swift fashion, the openers provided their own surprises as Abrahms joined MUNA onstage for their viral hit, Silk Chiffon, singing the second verse (Originally performed by Phoebe Bridgers).
Taylor Swift has become a notoriously private figure over the last few years, but she has never stopped being able to connect to fans on a personal level. Despite the theatrics and huge stage, Swift ensures each and every person feels seen in the sea of 70,000 fans. During a mashup of the recently popularized track, “Cruel Summer” and “Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Price,” in the Lover era of the set, Swift points around the arena to fans while singing that it had been a cruel summer with us.
Even in the quick-change transitions, there is no room to compose yourself as vibrant visuals fill the screen alongside swelling instrumentals by the exceptional touring band (which also accompanies Swift on her rerecorded releases). Between Lover and Fearless, there is a gold rain of light falling before the star rises from the floor with her staple statuesque poses. Peering around the venue, faces were unseen in the crowd as an overwhelming amount of iconic hand hearts with painted “13s” were held up to reminisce on the 2008 original album.
Everyone both on stage and in the sea of viewers looks up at Taylor with absolute adoration, many of the talented musicians and dancers that join Taylor on stage have been with her for years like her guitarist, Paul Sidoti, whom she highlights during the Fearless era with a back to back display of Sidoti shredding while the singer twirls her hair alongside him. With a squeeze to his face Swift prances down the catwalk in a glimmering gold fringe dress to “You Belong With Me.”
Post-COVID Eras Tour gave Swift the chance to perform 2020 albums, Evermore and Folklore, for the first time to a live audience. During Evermore’s era, the songs written from a fictional perspective were performed witchy songs like “willow,” in parallel to both a digital and physical forest of evergreen trees and starry skies, just as the sun set behind the arena. Her song, “tolerate it,” reads as the most theatrical track on the setlist in the same way a play is performed in a theater. Swift appears to set a long dining room table with “the fancy shit” as she begs her lover to stay while passionately slinking across the table on her hands and knees.
As a fan who attended Swift’s last tour cycle for Reputation, this was one of my most anticipated portions of the set, and boy, was I right. The electric album refreshed the Evermore-struck, emotional crowd with 808 beats to dance to. Taylor brought us to church with the gospel-led bridge of “Don’t Blame Me,” with blinding spotlights to the sky and layered vocals from herself and her powerful backup singers. The real surprise lay in the transition between the latter and the originally controversial song, “Look What You Made Me Do.” Connecting the repeating lyrics of the two songs, “Don’t blame me for what you made me do,” Swift conducted the crowd with her hands before ending the era with a blackout.
The Kansas City weekend was an especially significant one to both Taylor and her fans, Her third studio album, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), was rerecorded and released the night before Kansas City night one. The energy that hung in the lavender haze of purple outfits dedicated to celebrating the release ignited when the Speak Now era of the set held extra surprises. As a personal anecdote, this show was especially full circle for me. Speak Now was an album I religiously devoured growing up. Particularly the addition of “Long Live ” to the setlist brought unstoppable tears to my eye; a song I listened to every day of my senior year of high school being brought to life. Not only had the Speak Now era of the set been extended past the previously singular track “Enchanted” but the crowd anticipated more to come from the celebratory weekend.
The following RED era was stacked with classic radio hits for the masses like “We Are Never Getting Back Together,” and “22.” The connection to fans is reiterated during “22” as Taylor’s mother scouts the crowd for a fan to receive the famous RED hat from Swift, personally,
at the end of the catwalk. This fortunate fan was a darling little girl dawned in braids and a fitting purple shirt, she repaid the singer with a self-made friendship bracelet in return. When Swift released Taylor’s Version of RED, the breakout song was her previous deep cut, “All Too Well.” The re-recorded version of the song lasts ten gut-wrenching minutes and was paired with a short film starring Sadie Sink and Dylan O’Brien, the live performance captured the mass hysteria surrounding the track perfectly with a snow-like rain of confetti with a resounding “Fuck the patriarchy” echoing through the crowd before the spoken word transition into Folklore.
Folklore, much like Evermore, was written as it appears, in fictional folk storytelling. We followed the entirety of the Betty/Augustine/James plot line through tracks, “betty,” “august,” and, “cardigan.” The tracks follow a teenage love story with characters named after Swift’s close friends, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynold’s children; Inez, James, and Betty.
Much like the RED era, the 1989 era was composed of the domination of radio hits like, “Style,” “Shake It Off,” and, “Wildest Dreams.” The poppiest era was completed with the staples of 2014, neon colors, and sparkling clothing as Swift and her dancers found their revenge on their exes by smashing their digital car with glowing golf clubs in classic “Blank Space” style. Ending the 1989 era with “Bad Blood,” originally featuring Kendrick Lamar, the crowd inserted their anticipated chants. After Swift belted “Band-aids don’t fix bullet holes/ You say sorry just for show/ If you live like that, you live with ghosts,” fans shrieked Lamar’s recorded ad-lib, “You forgive, you forget, but you never let it go!”
Swift continually pulls out every stop to ensure a lingering euphoria to fans, one of the most coveted rituals is her surprise song portion of her set. Hardcore Swift fans knew that the Speak Now track “Last Kiss” was an inevitability as it was the eve before July 9th, referenced in the track. When Swift appeared at the end of the catwalk with her hall of fame, custom koi fish acoustic guitar the sound of the crowd almost drowned out her monologue intro to the song. Taylor Swift has reiterated previously that the surprise songs are singular to each city UNLESS she “messes it up.” “Last Kiss” has joined the roster of surprise songs to have the chance to be played again to another crowd as the singer had to restart the song thrice due to lyric mix-ups. Even in her pedestal level of stardom, Taylor Swift shows her humanity in little moments. During “Last Kiss” she assured the crowd of her adoration for the track, “I swear I love this song,” she claims as she begins again for the third time. The second surprise track came in the form of a (possible) nod to Kansas City and its famous relation to the Wizard of Oz with the Evermore song, “Dorthea.”
The final installment of the Eras Tour supported Swift’s tenth and most recent original release, Midnights. Even those adamantly against Swift haven’t been able to deny the infectiousness of the audial representation of glittering nights with dominating hits, “Anti-Hero” and “Bejeweled.” Before the tour began, fans confidently speculated the first song to be played would be “Lavender Haze,” and while proven wrong, the track could not be more perfect to begin the end of the show. The pulsing bass synced the crowd’s heartbeats to hers as she entered the final encore to the eras. Solidifying the undyingly iconic and ground-breaking discography of Taylor Swift, she finished the show with the hit song, “Karma.” As fireworks shot into the sky and Swift shouted her goodbye to Kansas City for her final night there, she beamed once more to
the crowd before skipping offstage in a blur of glitter and fringe, leaving us to our ringing ears and ear-to-ear smiles.
In all my years of attending concerts, I have never heard a crowd so loud. Not only does Arrowhead Stadium hold the world record for the loudest stadium in general – I can confirm the kansas city swifties brought the same energy tenfold, even Chiefs star quarterback Patrick Mahomes was in attendance to witness the biggest star to grace the stadium. Obtaining earplugs to protect from the waves of screams is HIGHLY recommended.
The community viciously dedicated to the star has created a safe space for each other in the form of friendship bracelets and simultaneous chant-alongs to fill the blank spaces in performed songs. Few performers can match the captivating energy Swift brings to the stage, and over the course of the three-hour set, if Swift is tired you wouldn’t be able to tell as the glimmer in her eye never fades.
