After 149 nights of sequin-filled stadiums across five continents, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour will come to an end Sunday night in Vancouver, British Columbia. Whether you’ve long been Swift-fatigued or are rewatching videos in the merch you bought at your third show, the conclusion of Swift’s Eras Tour marks the end of a global spectacle.
Starting with its economic impact. Eras became the highest-grossing concert tour in history about halfway through its run, and it’s wrapping up with well more than $1 billion in concert revenue. Swayed by what the Wall Street Journal termed Taylornomics—the noticeable economic bump brought to each city she toured—some politicians extended personal invitations to Swift, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the president of Chile, Gabriel Boric. Its accompanying concert film is the most profitable one in the genre.
Numbers aside, Eras was also a two-year cultural phenomenon that produced literal earthquakes in Seattle, Edinburgh, and Lisbon. Over the course of her tour, Swift became the first musician to be named Time’s Person of the Year. The Minnesota Star Tribune’s Jon Bream was on to something when he wrote that Swift achieved a “once unthinkable monoculture.” Singer-songwriter Billy Joel agreed, commenting after seeing the show with his daughters, “The only thing I can compare it to is the phenomenon of Beatlemania.”
While Swift’s tour took on an almost Homeric epic level of grandeur throughout its 21-month worldwide odyssey, I think her show’s main legacy is somewhat of a paradox: namely, its intimacy. “When Swift addressed the seventy-four thousand people who had gathered to see her,” observed Amanda Petrusichone for The New Yorker, “I felt as though she was not only speaking directly to me but confessing something urgent.” She wasn’t the only one to notice. Somehow, amid global superstardom and surrounded by tens of thousands of fans, Swift managed to come across as a confidant—perhaps even as a friend.
In a way, that’s been a consistent part of Swift’s appeal. She resonates not just because of the music itself but because it sparks a feeling of nodding along and thinking: “been there too.” While she’s of course not the first artist to cultivate an intimate bond with millions of fans, few have been able to do so consistently for multiple generations, some even the majority of their lifetimes. Most fans know every lyric to her 2008 breakout song “Love Story,” whether they were a teen when it was released or barely in kindergarten. The Eras Tour epitomizes Swift’s ability to connect with her fans and showcases just how well she’s perfected this throughout her career.
For me, the experience of the Eras show from beginning to end felt like entering the cafeteria at a new high school only to find that every table has saved you a seat. It began on the drive up I-95, with several signs welcoming us to ”Philly, Taylor’s Version.” The cheesesteak stand we visited before the show greeted us with both her music playing in the background and knowing, excited nods from staff and fellow traveling fans alike. The metro ride from downtown to Lincoln Field collected more and more bedazzled Swifties at each stop, culminating in an impromptu “You Belong With Me” sing-along. When I told the security guard at the stadium that I liked his “Bad Blood” friendship bracelet, he handed it to me with a wide grin and told me to enjoy the night. In the moments leading up to the performance, squeals of “I love your outfit!” echoed through the aisles as fans made their way to their seats.
Then came the show itself. It somehow blended the giddiness of a middle school sleepover with the weight of high school graduation. No doubt that Swift’s music played at both of those actual events for many in the crowd. (And prom. And college move-in day. And the drive home from the first day working in an office. And on and on.) Ever the mastermind, Swift was well aware throughout her performance of the role each song has played in the lives of her fans, offering the crowd a wink in some songs and a “you guys” in others. Nowhere was this more clear than in her 10-minute magnum opus, the song that even vehement non-Swifties readily confess to helping them through their first heartbreak. Swift placed “All Too Well” in the middle of her show and stripped it of all theatricality—it was the only song Swift performed with just her guitar and a spotlight that night. The stadium shared a rare moment of silence right before the song began, all aware of the dear place it holds to so many.
“It’s amazing how famous she’s become, considering she can’t really dance or sing.” So observed my older brother with the insight and curmudgeonliness that only older brothers possess. While many share this sentiment, the extent to which it’s true is largely besides the point.
The Eras Tour shows how fans love Swift’s music for the way it has spoken to specific moments in their lives over many years. They love her songs in the same way one loves a favorite bench in the park, or the local summer ice cream stand, or the hometown drive-thru frequented after high school sports games. That is to say, fans love her music for its particularity. A crowd of 74,000 fans all screamed the lyrics to her song “22”—less because of how it stacks up as a coming-of-age song, but simply because it’s the song they listened to in their various coming-of-age moments.
True to the pop genre, many of Swift’s songs often stay at the surface of things—heartbreak is painful, first love is sparkly, growing up is exciting, messy. While some pop stars express these tropes through catharsis or by ushering in an avant-garde summer, Swift primarily sings them to her fans in solidarity.
Early in her concert, Swift strums her guitar and sings, “There’s something ‘bout the way the street looks when it’s just rained,” ushering in peals of screams from the stadium. Hearing it live brought me back to hearing it for the first time with a friend from my algebra class 12 years before, as she practiced chording along on the guitar and me on the keyboard. Then and now, there’s not much else going on in the lyric other than her observation about the way the street looks; then and now, that remains largely the appeal.
The Eras Tour has showcased just how much Swift’s ability to enter into those daily, personal occurrences of life—whether heartbreak or the way the street looks—has resonated with her fans. It resonates so much, in fact, that she sang about them night after night in the most successful concert tour in history.
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