It was quite the summer bash this past weekend in Seattle. Steps from the iconic Space Needle, foodies from all over the Pacific Northwest gathered for the city’s three-day “premier food festival.” Less than a couple miles west, Sofi Tukker, Denzel Curry, Louis the Child, PinkPantheress and dozens more musical acts performed all weekend at the annual Capitol Hill Block Party. Heading south toward the SoDo neighborhood, the Seattle Mariners completed a three-game series against the Toronto Blue Jays at their home base of T-Mobile Park.
And, of course, just across the street, Taylor Swift finally brought her Eras Tour to Lumen Field — the climax to the officially declared Taylor Swift Week in King County.
Despite tens of thousands of people moving in and out of Washington state for a variety of different reasons, the Swiftie Energy was strong and felt everywhere. I-5 and I-90 were bumper to bumper as several cars and trucks with license plates from Idaho, Oregon and British Columbia were covered in lyrics and puns. “Shaking it off to the Eras Tour,” read one SUV headed from eastern Washington.
Sidewalks and iconic landmarks like Pike Place Market and Gas Works Park were extra Swiftie-coded too. No matter where you looked, chances were high you’d spot pedestrians in merch, cowboy boots, 13s or sequins — all telltale signs of an Eras Tour ticket-holder. Even the Space Needle was dressed to impress — hanging from the skyscraper’s entrance were giant friendship bracelets of its own that read “In My Seattle Era” and “#SwiftNeedle.”
For two sold-out nights, Taylor — alongside openers Gracie Abrams and HAIM — undoubtedly matched the crowd’s energy and then some. Billboard was on site at both sold-out shows, and we’ve rounded up the best moments from her big return to the PNW below.
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HAIM Enters Their Eras Era
A rotation of several musical acts from Phoebe Bridgers to Paramore have opened for Taylor since the tour began in March, but the July 22 show marked the first time HAIM stepped on the Eras stage. The superstar’s “favorite band” and “besties” played a 30-minute set of songs that included “Want You Back” and Swift’s personal favorite (which she later was featured on a remix of) “Gasoline.” During the Sunday show, the sister trio added a fun little addition just for Swifties — a live remix of their viral TikTok jingle “I’m Gonna Be Hungover” — created during the “Bejeweled” music video shoot.
The big surprise of the night, however, came when Swift entered her evermore era. Prior to Seattle, every night of the tour thus far has opened the era with “‘Tis the Damn Season.” For HAIM’s first shows, there was a switch-up: The track was replaced by the album’s collaboration with the California sister trio, “No Body, No Crime.” Este, Danielle and Alana all got their own opportunities to showcase their vocals as soloists — a departure from the studio recording, which they only sang background vocals on — and the crowd went wild.
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Seattle’s Big Reputation
During a speech ahead of performing “Lover” on Saturday, Taylor revealed she found a diary entry from her 2018 Reputation Tour that simply read, “Seattle, Washington is the best crowd I have ever played for.” Talk about living up to a big reputation! On night 2, she confirmed that the 2023 audience did just that: “There are performances tonight in the crowd that are Tony Award-winning performances,” she said mid-show.
Fun fact: Home to the Seattle Seahawks, the stadium is known for a loud audience — in fact, in 2013, it won the Guinness World Record for loudest crowd roar after a victory over the San Francisco 49ers sent noise levels to 136.6 decibels (noise above 70 dB over a prolonged period of time may start to damage your hearing, according to the CDC).
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‘Red’ and Debut Stans Win Surprise Song Sets
Taylor took us back to her pre-pop roots for three of the four songs she played during the surprise acoustic set over the two-show run. On Saturday, she played a solo rendition of her Red album’s Ed Sheeran collab, “Everything Has Changed” — but first confirmed that no special guest would be joining her for the performance. “There’s not a special guest,” she said bluntly, confused by the crowd’s roar. “Oh, are you clapping for me? That’s so nice,” she giggled.
On Sunday, she picked up her guitar for the live debut of Red vault track “Message in a Bottle” before moving to piano for “Tied Together With a Smile” — a deep cut from her 2006 self-titled debut album. While some audience members sat down for the performance of the little-known track, her longtime fans stood tall screaming every lyric through muffled sobs.
The surprise songs were quite the curveball for Seattle Swifties. Fans online speculated she would do at least one song from folklore ahead of the album’s third anniversary on July 23. Another theory posed that Hayley Williams would join for the live debut of “Castles Crumbling” — the Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) vault track the singer was featured on — because her band, Paramore, was scheduled for a show in Seattle the following day (though this show was later canceled due to illness in the band’s touring party).
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A ‘Reputation’ Revenge Track Gets Its Live Acoustic Debut
Another surprise song Taylor pulled from her 17-year catalog over the weekend was “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things,” a track from reputation rumored to be about *that* 2016 Kanye West and Kim Kardashian phone call, revealing the performance marked the first time she’d ever played the song acoustic before.
During the bridge, she took a pause for a full maniacal cackle (which, yes, is also featured on the original recording, but this one was considerably longer — about 20 seconds total). The audience joined along joyfully with laughs, screeches and “aws” before the singer-songwriter strummed back into the final rendition of the song’s earworm hook.
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Friendship Bracelets Galore
One major fan-created element of the Eras Tour is trading friendship bracelets, and Seattle undoubtedly arrived beaded and ready. The trend is inspired by a lyric in “You’re On Your Own, Kid” in which Taylor sings, “Make the friendship bracelets/ Take the moment and taste it.”
Thousands of concertgoers donned bracelets from their wrists to their elbows. Some even made dozens more, filling stadium-approved clear bags with colorful beads that read different album and song titles, lyrics, inside jokes, some expletives aimed toward former exes and more. Experienced Swifties were gifting the homemade jewels to little ones (many of whom were experiencing their first concert ever) all connecting over their shared adoration of the superstar singer-songwriter.
The concert even caused a bead shortage in the area — earlier in the week, The Seattle Times reported that one local bead store, Beadworld in Seattle’s Maple Leaf neighborhood, “had to scramble to reorder merchandise to meet spiking demand.”
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A Bejeweled Birthday
What better way to spend your birthday than onstage with Miss Swift herself? Kam Saunders, one of Taylor’s 15 Eras Tour backup dancers, did just that during the July 23 show. Taylor even gave him his own little moment in the spotlight as he broke out into a solo dance during “Bejeweled” before wishing him a quick “happy birthday” in between lyrics. She also gave him what looked like the warmest onstage hug ever — sing-smiling a couple of bars through a big embrace.
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The Lore Behind ‘Folklore’
One song into her folklore set, Taylor took a brief pause from singing for a little chat about the making of her first pandemic-era album. She revealed she started on the album just two days into the COVID-19 lockdown.
“I imagined this life where I wasn’t a lonely millennial woman, covered in cat hair, drowning in white wine, somehow managing to watch 750 hours of television a day,” she joked at the Saturday night show. “Instead, in my imaginary, folklorian fantasy, I was somehow a Victorian woman and a pioneer woman at the same time.” She went on to describe the cabin she pictured herself living in (which was also onstage, a replica of the one she performed in at the 2021 Grammys) being “in the middle of the woods, somewhere in Washington state probably.”
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A Movie Star and Music Legend
Dozens of celebrity guests have already visited Eras Tour stops around the country, and her Seattle weekend shows saw a new slew of famous faces. On night 1, Pearl Jam lead vocalist and Seattle music icon Eddie Vedder was spotted, as well as Imagine Dragons’ Dan Reynolds, each enjoying the show from the VIP tent with their families.
Fresh off opening weekend of the Barbie movie, (just Ken) Simu Liu was in attendance and all smiles on night 2. “i was absolutely BLOWN away by the eras tour, by taylor and by all of the amazing and kind swifties that stopped by the tent to say hello and give a bracelet,” the Canadian actor tweeted after the show.
