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Taylor Swift - The Eras Tour Explained

Writer's picture: Skyla ClarkeSkyla Clarke

One of the most famous singers in history, ranked #8 in Billboard’s Greatest Artists of All Time, is back on tour. Taylor Swift, who has released four albums since her last tour in 2017, is now halfway through the US leg of The Eras Tour - a tour for every single one of her albums. 31 shows have been completed across 11 cities, including Glendale AZ, Las Vegas NV, Arlington TX, Tampa FL, Houston TX, Atlanta GA, Nashville TN, Philadelphia PA, Foxborough MA, East Rutherford NJ, and most recently, Chicago IL. Of course we have all heard of the notable events that have happened on the tour, such as the announcement of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), and the live "Karma" collab with Ice Spice. But hat else has happened?


First of all, the more than three hour long setlist happened. The setlist definitely had a few surprises and even some upsets, despite it being nearly 45 songs long! The introduction starts off with the lyric “it’s been a long time coming”, referring to the amount of time us poor swifties have had to wait for a concert since the reputation stadium tour back in 2017. The lyric plays through the speakers until the goddess herself pops up through the stage, wearing a glammed up leotard, singing one of the most underrated songs on Lover: “Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince”, which is the first song performed at each show. The rest of the Lover Era portion of the setlist includes the classics, such as some of my personal favourites “The Archer” and “Cruel Summer”, as well as “Lover”, “You need to calm down” and “The Man”.

Next is the Fearless era. The Fearless era starts with Taylor skipping out onto the stage with her gorgeous sparkly guitar. The Fearless era consists of only three songs, which certainly take us back to our childhood. ‘Fearless’, ‘Love Story’ and ‘You Belong With Me’ combined with the hand hearts and the frilly dress make us all reminisce.

After the relatively short Fearless era comes Evermore, an era that many fans were surprised got so much attention from Taylor. Usually deemed the ‘unloved child’ out of all of Taylor’s albums, five songs are played from the Evermore album each night, including “’tis the damn season”, “willow”, “marjorie”, “champagne problems” and “tolerate it”. Many of these songs have never been played live before Glendale Night 1, so it is interesting to see the way that they are represented on stage, with the witchy-style dances and effects.

In a rather startling transition from the last heartbreaking lyrics of ‘tolerate it’ to the thumping baseline of “...Ready For it?” the reputation era begins. Taylor Swift rises up on the stage in a black jumpsuit covered in red snake details - a perfect fit for a perfect era. Like Fearless, the reputation era only consists of a few classics: “...Ready For it?”, “Delicate”, “Don’t Blame Me” and “Look What You Made Me Do”. And of course, because Taylor is a performing genius, the choreography and the way that these songs were presented live was sensational. However, many fans were a little disappointed that the setlist for reputation wasn’t longer, with fan favourites “Getaway Car” and “I Did Something Bad” missing. I personally am disappointed that “End Game” featuring Future and Ed Sheran isn’t played every night, but fingers crossed that Taylor is saving that for the Auckland show!

Once the reputation era ends, Taylor changes into a beautiful sparkly gown to perform one song (“Enchanted”) from the Speak Now era. So while everyone thought that Evermore was the unloved child, in reality it was Speak Now? Fans are missing out on absolute bangers like “Better Than Revenge”, “Sparks Fly”, “Dear John” and the title track (to name a few) for what reason? It’s safe to say that speak now stans will definitely think that Taylor is a bit “Mean” for this one.

After the one Speak Now song was the Red era, again including the absolute bangers that take us back to 2012 such as ‘22’, ‘We are Never Ever Getting Back Together’, and ‘I knew you were trouble’. A vault track also made the setlist, ‘All Too Well (Ten Minute Version)’ from Red (Taylor’s Version), and, for the lucky shows where Phoebe Bridgers was the guest star, ‘Nothing New’ was also played. But still, because of the love that people have for the album Red, many fans felt some of there favourite songs were missing from the setlist. I guess that’s the problem with making records that are of perfection. There are 30 tracks on Red (Taylor’s Version), so people were bound to miss out on some.

Even so, much of the setlist was taken up by songs from the very highly rated, grammy award winning folklore. For the first few shows, “invisible string” was the first song of the era. But after the alleged break-up between Taylor and her long-term partner Joe Alwyn, it changed to “the 1”. The other songs from the folklore era are “betty”, “the last great american dynasty”, “august”, “illicit affairs”, “my tears ricochet” and “cardigan”. The powerful bridge of “illicit affairs” has received a lot attention from fans because of how moving it is when Taylor performs it in her flowy pink/white dresses. One of my favourite songs to cry to, “my tears ricochet” has definitely forced the audience to tears throughout the shows (as it should). However, many fans felt that they were robbed of burnout-academic-validation-children anthems “mirrorball” and “this is me trying”, which were both played in Glendale as surprise songs, meaning that they probably will not be repeated again throughout the tour.

From depressing to freshing, 1989 is the next, and second to last era on the tour. Because of the length of Taylor’s performance (where she performs for more than three hours at each concert!) my favourite era again only included the hits: “Style”, “Blank Space”, “Shake it Off”, “Wildest Dreams”, and “Bad Blood”. I personally think that songs like “Wildest Dreams” and “Bad Blood” that have been overplayed and now receive less hype should be replaced by songs like “Out of the Woods” or “Clean” that will receive hype every single time.

And finally, the last era included on the tour was the most recent album released, the Midnights era. The Midnights era included seven songs, that were performed live for the first time on Glendale Night 1. “Lavender haze”, “Anti-hero”, “Midnight rain”, “Vigilante Shit”, “Bejeweled” and “Mastermind” are all played, which is over half of the original album - so not many setlist complaints there. The upbeat song “Karma” closes off the show, with Taylor and her dancers dancing is colourful, frilly jackets.


However, in between the 1989 and Midnights eras is a notable break from the setlist, known by fans as ‘surprise song o’clock’. This is where Taylor will play one acoustic song and one song on piano each night, which is completely unique to that show. The deal with the surprise songs is that they will only be repeated if they are from Midnights, or if they are messed up during their first performance. “Clean” is the only song that has been repeated so far. Other songs that have been performed include “mirrorball”, “this is me trying”, “our song”, “Death by a thousand cuts”, “You’re on your own kid”, “The other side of the door”, “Out of the woods”, “coney island”, “Fifteen”, “Holy Ground” and many, many more. On some occasions the surprise songs have featured guest stars such as Jack Antonoff for “Getaway Car”, Marcus Mumford for “Cowboy like me”, Maren Morris for “You All Over Me” and Aaron Dessner for “The Great War”, “mad woman”, and “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve”. This seriously makes me wonder if any decent songs are going to be left for her New Zealand show, or if we are going to get something like “ME!” or “Christmas Tree Farm”.


In saying that, we don’t even know when the New Zealand show is going to be, or if it is going to be. Just recently, international dates were announced for Latin America, with three Mexico shows in August, and three shows each for Brazil and Argentina in November. Taylor’s caption on that post states that “LOTS more international dates to come soon, promise!”, but we have to be sceptical, because the last time that we were told that international dates would be announced ‘soon’ was in early November last year, when the dates for the US leg were announced. The US leg will be finishing in early August, and afterwards there will be the shows in Mexico, leaving a space of two months for the next announced shows (Brazil and Argentina). We could assume that this is when she will perform in Canada, who’s shows have also not been released yet. Presumably this leaves the summer of 2024 for Australia and New Zealand dates right? And then as winter changes into summer in the northern hemisphere shows will start up in Europe and probably Asia. So, hopefully Taylor Swift will be coming to New Zealand this December/January, to share with us her favourite poems.


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