All anyone could talk about was Taylor Swift. The local news covered it like Pope and POTUS were descending upon Gillette Stadium. In-the-door tickets prices topped $1,500 on secondary market sites in the days leading up to the three-show stadium run. The Eras Tour was finally coming to “Foxy Foxborough”—the first stadium she ever played, and the home of her infamous first “rain show” during her 2011 Speak Now trek.
And somehow, with all the hype and all the coverage, the Taylor Swift Eras Tour still exceeded expectations—three days of celebration, music, bonding and more. It had the energy and love of a music festival and, of course, of Taylor herself.
That’s the magic. Taylor is impossibly likable. She works as hard or harder than anyone one the road—three-hour shows, no breaks except for outfit changes. Rain? Doesn’t bother her. Saturday evening in Foxborough brought a deluge that would deter most fanbases and most artists. Taylor? Her fans looked forward to it, and hundreds of fans still braved the weather to stand on the stairs outside the stadium listening and dancing. No ticket? No problem.
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The tour’s production is less like a typical show and more like a movie set in real life. It’s bigger than any concert, bigger than any Broadway show. Gorgeous sets, visuals, costumes, and effects combine to transport attendees into Taylor’s universe, a different world for each era of her career. A built-in guest appearance by supporting act Phoebe Bridgers on their Red (Taylor’s Version) collab, “Nothing New”, only adds to the uniquely personal ambiance. If it wasn’t for all the screams and tears around coming from her ecstatic fans, it would would have been easy to forget you were with 70,000 other people.
Then, there’s the music. It’s undeniable. It’s pure pop for the most part, but they’re bangers. How many artists can fill a three-hour set with zero bad songs and still leave people upset they didn’t hear their favorite? That’s how deep her catalog goes. On top of the tour’s relatively rigid setlist, Friday’s crowd was treated to one of the more special “surprise” songs of the tour, with rare selections “Should’ve Said No” (off her 2006 self-titled debut) and “Better Man” (off 2012’s Red). At Saturday’s rain-washed performance, Swift debuted Midnights track “Question…?” on guitar, then moved to her floral-painted piano for the tour’s first “Invisible”.
On Sunday, while the rain had stopped, it seemed Taylor’s instruments were still drying out: After playing her first-ever live rendition of Lover cut “I Think He Knows” on guitar, she attempted to switch to piano for “Red”. When her piano began to malfunction, however, she quickly adjusted and performed the tour’s first rendition of the 2012 track on guitar, instead.
The Eras Tour is, quite simply, the biggest music tour in history. In every sense. The production is bigger, the hype is bigger, the performance is bigger, the demand is impossible to comprehend—and Taylor Swift is better than ever.
View a gallery of photos from the Friday night Taylor Swift performance at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, MA below via Brent Goldman. For a complete list of upcoming Taylor Swift The Eras Tour dates, head here.
