The Eras Tour
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Part of Taylor Swift‘s magic is her ability to make individual fans feel like she’s singing directly to them. But in Gracie Abrams‘ case, Swift actually was when she dedicated “Clean,” the April 1 Eras Tour show surprise song and a favorite of Abrams’, to the 23-year-old indie pop star.
Abrams has previously shared that she had no idea Swift — her idol since childhood — was going to make such a sweet gesture that night in Arlington, Texas, which marked the “21” singer’s first of several nights as an opener for the Eras Tour‘s North American leg. And in a recent interview with Teen Vogue, she reflected on how special the moment was for her as a lifelong Swiftie.
“I don’t think I realized the scale at which that one means something to everyone,” she told the publication. “That’s the thing about Taylor’s music. When one of her songs lands in a specific place in your life, it feels like you’re the only person in the world who has that extreme of a connection to the song.”
“I felt so grateful to hear it in that way, so stripped and raw,” Abrams continued. “That song has been kind of a constant security blanket since it came out. I have so many little memories listening to that song at times when I needed it. To hear her so thoughtfully dedicate it, I was like, ‘I could die now and be totally thrilled.’”
The L.A. native also got candid about how nerve-racking it can be to warm up a stadium-sized audience before Swift’s shows, saying she stays grounded while performing by keeping her eyes trained on the fans closest to her. “Otherwise,” says the “21” singer, “I think I would only be able to think about how I’m playing on the same stage as my favorite artist in the world, and she’s granting me that opportunity, and how did life get from being 10 years old and crying to her music in my room to being on this stage and celebrating her career in this way?”
Abrams has fully embraced how her fandom for Swift has become a core part of her own artistic identity, never shying away from the topic in interviews. In February, as she was gearing up to release her debut album Good Riddance, the “I Know it Won’t Work” artist told Billboard that Swift’s friendship and professional solidarity “means so much” to her.
“She’s as spectacular a person and friend as she is an artist, writer, director,” she continued. “She’s really that great. To be able to lean on her in any capacity really means a lot. The opportunity [to open for the Eras Tour] is so outrageous… I feel like I don’t even really believe it’s real. I’m so stoked to watch her crush it every single night. To see her up close in that way and be able to study that is the greatest gift.”
See photos from Gracie Abrams’ Teen Vogue shoot below.
Gayle used to have trouble dealing with hate, but recently, she’s learned how to shake it off. That’s thanks to some advice given to her by idol-turned-confidante Taylor Swift, whom the 18-year-old Nashville musician credits with helping her put backlash into perspective when it comes to her success or her polarizing smash hit “abcdefu.”
Gayle revealed in an interview with Teen Vogue published Thursday (April 27) that, in touring with Swift and sitting next to her at award shows, she has gleaned some well-earned wisdom from the 33-year-old pop star about tuning out negativity. “She’s like, ‘Baby child. Come on. What controversy could you have had for the five minutes you’ve been making music?’” Gayle recalled Swift telling her.
“And that’s true,” the “Everybody Hates Me” singer continued. “That’s fair. It was really, really nice for her to say, when I’ve told her my biggest, deepest worries, she’s like, ‘You’re right. And it’s fine.’”
Gayle’s career skyrocketed after her angsty breakup chart-topper blew up on TikTok in 2021. There was already some people who openly scorned the trendiness and success of “abcdefu” before the 2023 Grammy nominations were announced last year, but when Gayle earned a nod for song of the year alongside Swift’s “All Too Well (10 Minute Version),” her critics got even louder. (Both she and Swift lost the category to Bonnie Raitt’s “Just Like That.”)
According to Teen Vogue, though, Swift’s advice was simple, that Gayle had to make the music she wanted and grow as a musician, and learn how to deal with people’s responses.
“[I had to decide] if I won’t take advice from you, I won’t take criticism from you,” Gayle added. “I can’t not give it all I got just because I’m scared of the possibility of people not liking it. … My music, at the very least, is supposed to make you feel something. If it’s hatred, you’re still feeling something. I’m still winning a little bit. I’ll take it.”
The young star also recounted the story of how Swift asked her to be one of the Eras Tour openers, an invitation that essentially went down the very first time Gayle met her hero at the Nashville Songwriter Association International awards ceremony last year. “She was like, ‘Oh my God, are you touring? Do you tour?’ I’m like, ‘Oh my God. Yeah, I do tour,’” she said.
“She’s like, ‘Oh my God, are you touring next year?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I am.’ She’s like, “That’s amazing. Do you open up for people?’ I don’t know why my dumb a– said this, but I was like, ‘I open up for people who ask me to open up for them.’ She was like, ‘I’ll call you.’ I was like, oh my God, I’m going to die.”
Swifties are teaming up to pay tribute to one of their own. Following the devastating news that a 20-year-old Taylor Swift fan named Jacob Lewis was killed by a suspected drunk driver while on his way home from an Eras Tour show in Houston, supporters have rallied to honor him with a special friendship bracelet project and personalized GoFundMe donations.
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The friendship bracelet project was started by @swifferwins on Twitter, who posted a screenshot of a conversation with Lewis’ sister April Bancroft on Monday (April 24). The direct messages showed Bancroft — who was with Lewis when he died after the pair attended Swift’s Friday (April 21) show at NRG Stadium together — sharing that she and her brother “had the most fun” dancing to “Shake It Off” and that she “looked over at him and saw the awe in his eyes watching her perform.”
“Jacob’s favorite song to dance to at the eras tour was shake it off,” wrote the @swifferwins account. “I think it would be a beautiful tribute to make some shake it off bracelets for each other to remember him, and to shake off the haters and live fully.”
🩵🤍🩷 SHAKE IT OFF BRACELET PROJECT FOR JACOB LEWIS 🩷🤍🩵Jacob’s favorite song to dance to at the eras tour was shake it off. I think it would be a beautiful tribute to make some shake it off bracelets for each other to remember him, and to shake off the haters and live fully pic.twitter.com/OGI3mHhydI— swiftie wins (@swifferwins) April 24, 2023
Swifties have been exchanging friendship bracelets since the Eras Tour began in March as a way to make friends at concerts, taking inspiration from a lyric in Midnights Track 5 “You’re On Your Own, Kid”: “So make the friendship bracelets/ Take the moment and taste it.” The call to personalize some of those bracelets in Lewis’ honor has already received thousands of likes and hundreds of retweets in the 24 hours since it was posted, with Bancroft’s blessing.
Meanwhile, Swifties have been flooding a GoFundMe page started by a family friend on behalf of Lewis’ father with tailored donations and messages. In just two days, the page raised $110,000 for Lewis’ funeral costs, thanks largely in part to fan donations in the amount of the “Anti-Hero” singer’s famous lucky number 13.
Many of the Swiftie donations include touching messages borrowing relevant lyrics from Swift’s discography. “Long Live Jacob!! You will be Remembered!!” wrote one donor. “You were bigger than the whole sky. You were more than just a short time,” wrote another.
According to KHOU-11, Lewis and Bancroft were driving home from the show when they had car trouble on the freeway. As Lewis got out and began pushing the car, he was struck and immediately killed by 34-year-old Alan Bryant, who fled the scene. A tow truck driver who saw what happened followed Bryant, and he was eventually arrested by police.
“Jacob will be remembered as a loving and faithful young man who was loyal to his family and friends,” wrote Lewis’ father, Steve, in a heartbreaking Facebook post about his son’s death. “His last act was to push his sister to safety on a dark street. There is no way to describe the magnitude of this loss and the emptiness left in our hearts.”
Taylor Swift saw that her fans were concerned about her literal “Death By a Thousand Cuts” moment, during which she somehow acquired a gnarly injury on her left palm during one of her recent Eras Tour shows in Houston. Don’t worry, though — she says she’s completely fine.
In a Monday (April 24) post on her social media accounts, shared one day after she finished out a weekend of three concerts at NRG Stadium, the 33-year-old pop star revealed what happened to her and her guitar chord-playing hand during her Saturday (April 22) concert. “Just got to play 3 insane shows in Houston and I’m waking up smiling reminiscing about how much fun we all had,” she began, captioning three dynamic, sparkly photos from the trio of performances.
“Loving this tour so much because of the passion these crowds put into it all – seriously can’t wait for Atlanta,” Swift continued, before revealing how she injured herself. “PS for those asking how I cut my hand, I’m totally fine and it was my fault completely – tripped on my dress hem and fell in the dark backstage while running to a quick change – braced my fall with my palm.”
“It was all very Mercury in retrograde coded,” she joked. “Don’t worry about me I’m gooooood.”
Swifties have been buzzing about the “Anti-Hero” singer’s endurance ever since photos of her hand injury cropped up online following the second Houston show. Fans couldn’t believe how the pop star was able to continue through the rest of her three-hour set without any indication that she was in pain, despite the chunk of missing skin on the bottom part of her palm.
One fan even traced back photos from the night to identify when the injury must have occurred: during a costume change in between the songs “Tolerate It” and “Ready For It.” Another Swiftie tweeted, “i cannot believe she performed with her hand THAT injured last night, without letting on that something was going on. we do not deserve her.”
When Taylor Swift wrote “Death By a Thousand Cuts,” she probably didn’t mean to take it so literally. During her Saturday (April 22) Eras Tour concert, the pop star scraped her hand midway through and powered through the rest of the show with a pretty nasty-looking wound.
Fans watching the second of Swift’s three shows in Houston over the weekend quickly noticed that she was missing a chunk of skin from her left palm, which appeared to bleed on and off throughout the remainder of the performance. One Swiftie clocked that the injury must have happened in between the “Anti-Hero” singer’s quick change between “Tolerate It,” the last song in the Folkore section of the set list, and “Ready For It,” the first song in the Reputation section.
“her wrist is fine by the end of tolerate it and by the time she walks down the stage for rfi you see the blood near her palm,” one fan tweeted.
As the concert progressed, Swift could be seen with bandages wrapped around her wrist and palm. But through all of the costume changes, choreography and guitar/piano-playing the singer does throughout her three-hour set, the bandage seemed to lose its stickiness and slip off of her hand.
If she was in pain, however, Swift definitely didn’t show it. Fans online couldn’t believe how well she powered through the performance without even flinching at the visible gash on her hand, with one Swiftie tweeting, “taylor is actually better than me cuz i cut my hand like this accidentally and i literally couldn’t stop crying cuz it hurt as hell she’s literally a superhuman.”
“taylor’s dedication is unreal,” wrote another. “i cannot believe she performed with her hand THAT injured last night, without letting on that something was going on. we do not deserve her.”
Billboard has reached out to Swift’s rep for comment.
See photos and fan reactions to Taylor Swift’s painful-looking mid-show injury below:
for those wondering about taylor’s wrist here’s what happened 🧵she cut right below her palm sometime in the change btwn tolerate it – > RFI. her wrist is fine by the end of tolerate it and by the time she walks down the stage for rfi you see the blood near her palm. pic.twitter.com/8fINwsv6io— sophia (@lovr_23) April 24, 2023
taylor is actually better than me cuz i cut my hand like this accidentally and i literally couldn’t stop crying cuz it hurt as hell 😭 she’s literally a superhuman pic.twitter.com/FN6U0eCFHi— rania (@tolerateitlover) April 24, 2023
taylor’s insane bc she performed two nights with her hand hurt and missing a piece but when I get a paper cut I cancel all my plans bc it hurts too much— 🪩 eME!rald 🕰️ 🌙 HEARD MIRRORBALL LIVE🪩 (@hushmirrorball) April 24, 2023
taylor’s dedication is unreal. i cannot believe she performed with her hand THAT injured last night, without letting on that something was going on. we do not deserve her.— cadence⸆⸉ 🌲 (@notagoldrush) April 24, 2023
WHAT THE HELLLL taylor’s hand was actually so bad how did she even play guitar after this oh my beloved whoever did this TRUST you will be dealt with!!!! pic.twitter.com/TLLFeoh5uA— ali’s MIDNIGHTS (@ownedbytayla) April 23, 2023
Taylor Swift‘s The Eras tour is taking over NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas, this weekend and to celebrate, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo gave the venue a Swiftie-themed rebrand.
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Hidalgo announced on Wednesday (April 19) that the stadium will be renamed “NRG Stadium (Taylor’s Version)” throughout the weekend in honor of the pop superstar. To add to the fun, banners with the temporary name will be hung at the stadium’s north and south entrances, according to Chron.
“We know all too well that other areas have done huge things,” Hidalgo said in a video message shared to Twitter, referencing a number of Swift’s songs. “They’ve lit up the town; they’ve renamed streets, they’ve even made you mayor for a day. But we’re going to something even better. I know if I did any of that, folks would say that I am the man.”
“With the name change, I know it’ll never go out of style,” she continued. “Plus, it’s not only the young that enjoy your music. I hope your stay is beyond your wildest dreams, and for everyone in Harris County, let’s get ready for it!”
Swift will perform at NRG Stadium (Taylor’s Version) for three nights, beginning on Friday (April 21) and then continuing on Saturday (April 22) and Sunday (April 23). Beabadoobee and Gracie Abrams are lined up as the openers.
One fan who will hopefully be at the show is a Texas legal-service provider named Karen Vladeck, who wrote a pun-filled letter to her first-grade daughter’s teacher asking for her to be excused from school to attend The Eras tour in Houston. According to Vladeck, the teacher simply responded in all caps, “THIS MADE MY ENTIRE DAY.”
Billy Joel has a pair of Swifties on his hands. The Piano Man took his two young daughters to see Taylor Swift during her Eras Tour stop in Tampa, Fla., on Saturday night, much to their excitement and delight.
The “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant” singer shared a carousel of photos to his personal Instagram page on Sunday, which included images of his wife, Alexis Roderick, and their two little girls, Della Rose, 7, and Remy Anne, 5 — who appeared to be dressed in outfits inspired by the folklore/evermore and Lover eras — posing for pictures before the show and later dancing along as Swift sang “Are You Ready for It?”
“Rockin’ into our new ‘era’ thank you @Taylorswift we loved the show! #swifties #taylorswift #theerastour,” the veteran musician captioned the images. The girls also got an extra special treat: They were able to meet Swift herself backstage alongside their mom and dad.
Joel and his family are far from the first celebrities to geek out at Swift’s Eras tour. Selena Gomez, Jack Antonoff, HAIM, Aaron Dessner, Marcus Mumford, Diplo and Shania Twain are among a handful of the tour’s celebrity attendees (see a full list of all the famous guests at The Eras Tour here).
The Eras Tour is scheduled to continue with a trio of dates at Houston’s NRG Stadium this weekend, with Beabadoobee and Gracie Abrams opening. The tour will make stops in Nashville, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis and more before concluding at Inglewood, Calif.’s SoFi Stadium on Aug. 9.
See Joel’s pictures from The Eras Tour below.
Taylor Swift is making a caveat to her previous rule about the surprise songs portion of her Eras Tour concerts.
The 33-year-old pop superstar announced to concert-goers in Tampa, Fla., on Friday (April 14) that she will now allow herself to perform certain songs as many times as she likes during the mini acoustic set of her upcoming stadium shows.
“Basically when I started the tour, I was like, ‘In the acoustic section, I am never repeating a song. I’m never doing songs more than once.’ But now I’m like, ‘There are so many songs I want to do more than once,’” Swift said in a fan-captured clip from Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium.
She added, “So, I’m making a little caveat to the rule, which is that if [a song] is on Midnights, I can do it however many times I want, because Midnights is the most accurate picture of my life to date.”
During the surprise songs segment of her Tampa concert on Friday, Swift delivered the live debuts of the Midnights (3am Edition) track “The Great War,” alongside frequent collaborator Aaron Dessner, and the Midnights song “You’re on Your Own, Kid.” The songs peaked at No. 26 and No. 8, respectively, on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 2022.
Swift first revealed her intentions for the acoustic section of her long-awaited live show at the March 17 launch of her Eras Tour in Glendale, Ariz.
“The plan, the goal, would be to play different songs every single night and never repeat one. Right? So that when you heard one on this tour, you would know it’s the only time that I was going to play it in the acoustic set, unless — caveat — unless I mess it up so badly,” the star said with a small laugh, “that I have to do it over again in some other city. Send your best wishes towards me that I don’t do that.”
See the full list of surprise songs Swift has performed so far on her Eras Tour here.
Taylor Swift made yet another generous donation to a Florida food bank on Thursday (April 13) ahead of bringing The Eras Tour to Tampa.
In an Instagram post on Thursday, Feeding Tampa Bay announced that the “Anti-Hero” singer had made a significant contribution. “Thank you @taylorswift for being a HERO and supporting Feeding Tampa Bay’s mission to end hunger by 2025!” the nonprofit organization wrote in a caption beneath a close-up of Swift’s multi-colored tour poster. “Your generosity will place over 125,000 meals on tables!”
Swifties praised their queen for the private act of kindness in the comments section, with one writing, “Incredible human. Very humble and generous. Loves her fans and cities she goes to.” Another declared Swift “The people’s Princess.” A third Swiftie laughingly commented, “AND SHES THE MAYOR YALL,” citing Tampa Mayor Jane Castor bestowing the singer with the title of honorary mayor during her visit and giving her a key to the city.
The donations continue Swift’s recent giving streak, which started with similar gifts at food banks in both Arizona and Las Vegas along the tour route late last month.
Though Taylor is gearing up for three consecutive shows at Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium, the Hillsborough County superintendent tried to use the singer’s own songs to craft a public letter warning students not to miss school to attend the “AMAZING” three-hour spectacle.
The Tampa shows will also be the first time Tay hits the stage following the news that she and Joe Alwyn had officially broken up after more than six years together.
Check out Feeding Tampa Bay’s grateful shout-out to Swift for her donation below.
Taylor Swift‘s The Eras tour is taking over Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla., on Thursday night (April 13), which happens to be a school night. That’s why Hillsborough County Superintendent Addison Davis sent out a letter of caution to students, in a language only Swifties can understand.
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The letter, which let students know that an absence to attend the concert will not be excused, was filled with references to various Swift songs. “I understand I am the ‘Anti-Hero’ here, and ‘Call It What You Want,’ but ‘You’re on Your Own Kid’ if you think being a Swiftie is a good excuse for missing important instruction,” the note posted to Reddit reads. “You know ‘All Too Well’ you ‘Should’ve Said No’ to attending a Thursday night concert. Especially one from an artist who is known for putting on a three-hour AMAZING show.”
Read the full letter here.
Davis had a similar idea to a Texas legal-service provider named Karen Vladeck, who wrote her own pun-filled letter for exactly what the superintendent was dreading: asking that her first-grader be excused from school to attend The Eras tour. According to Vladeck, the teacher simply responded in all caps, “THIS MADE MY ENTIRE DAY.”
Swift is currently a month into her Eras Tour shows, which she kicked off in Glendale, Arizona. Following sets in Las Vegas and Arlington, the “Anti-Hero” musician is headlining three shows in Tampa on April 13, 14 and 15.