With 243 songs in her discography and having spent most of her life singing for crowds, Taylor Swift offers The Eras Tour to her fans as the pinnacle of live performance. As one of the 65,000 screaming heads in the stadium for The Eras Tour in New Orleans on Saturday night, I didn’t just experience a concert. No, I felt how much this tour and each one of her fans means to Taylor. 

From the diverse cast of backup dancers, breathtaking stage displays and surprises in every one of the nearly 200 stops slated for the two-year tour, it’s clear that Taylor Swift and her team sweat every detail to make each performance personal. Her precise hand gestures and what feels like casual chats between songs, like when she explained her mindset while writing sister albums Folklore and Evermore, draw in longtime Swifties, casual fans and the parents or significant others who simply tagged along for the night. 

Comparatively speaking, I’m not that much of a Swiftie. Or, as my friend Alexandra assured me when I expressed doubts about being a true fan, “You’re just not chronically online.”

I went into the concert clueless—that is, I did not Google her set list, memorize any chants, make a friendship bracelet or watch previous performances. In fact, the reality of the concert didn’t set in until a few days before, when I found myself crying in the Costco parking lot singing “Fortnight” on Wednesday afternoon. Only then did it finally dawn on me that I would soon see Taylor Swift live next to my best friend, Alexandra. The same friend I’ve sung countless Taylor Swift songs alongside since middle school.

Thanks to Alexandra’s relentless dedication, she snagged our VIP floor seat tickets last year. So Saturday morning, I kissed my napping six-month-old goodbye, reminded my husband how to use the bottle warmer, and headed down I-10 to Alexandra’s house just outside of the city for my very first mother’s night out. It just so happened to be The Eras Tour New Orleans. 

Easter Eggs and Foreshadowing

Much like her albums, Taylor’s concerts contain “Easter eggs” galore. After all, she’s a mastermind. On every corner of the internet, there are roundups of what to look out for, from her t-shirt wording to the color of her sparkly skirt set to songs she maybe intentionally left out of the tour. I somehow managed not to see a single one for over a year. Fortunately for me, though, Alexandra has watched dozens of The Eras Tour shows via TikTok Live and stays abreast of all the lore on X. She giddily pointed out several of these beloved golden nuggets. But it was a few bouts of foreshadowing that made the concert feel spiritual in nature. 

As Gracie Abrams took the stage as the opener, we stood to welcome her, and I felt the first of several nudges that would come throughout the night. “Next year, she’ll be selling out stadium tours,” Alexandra said. “Sabrina Carpenter was her last opener. Look at her now.” Talk about subtle foreshadowing. 

As the countdown on the screen neared zero, we scrambled for our last-minute selfies, and I haphazardly guessed what the two surprise songs for the night would be. “Paper Rings” and “Welcome to New York.” Final answer. Alexandra winced, alerting me that my choices were not even in the realm of possibility. 

Taylor took the stage promptly at 8 p.m., a fact I do not take lightly. To me, nothing says “I care” like being on time. My eyes welled with tears as the breathtaking, larger-than-life displays worn by her dance team erupted one by one on the stage for her opening performance, a mash-up of “Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince” and “Cruel Summer.” 

While I couldn’t see her on the stage yet, I knew she had arrived by the way my eardrums rattled.

Earlier in the day, as we approached the Caesars Superdome entrance, “Welcome to New York” looped in my head, and I happily sang along with the gaggle of young girls in front of us. The song had serendipitously played as I pulled into Alexandra’s neighborhood that morning and had been lingering in my brain ever since. “She doesn’t play that song,” Alexandra reported with a frown as we crossed the street to enter the concert.

Later in the evening, Taylor sat at the piano for the acoustic portion of the set and played a familiar melody. “You’re joking,” Alexandra shouted as I turned to her, singing along, “It’s been waiting for you! Welcome to New York, Welcome to New York!” That was a major win for this casual Swiftie.

Among all the Easter eggs, my favorite is the fact that Taylor’s backup dancer, Kameron Saunders’ brother, Khalen Saunders, is a defensive tackle for the New Orleans Saints. There’s far more lore to accompany this one, and I urge you to Google their names for wholesome entertainment or, at the very least, watch this video that Kameron posted on Instagram. 

Perhaps I’ve made it this far in the concert review without mentioning Sabrina Carpenter‘s surprise appearance because that moment felt like (and still feels like) a fever dream.

“This is UNHINGED,” a woman in front of us proclaimed, grabbing her face as Taylor shushed the crowd while the phone rang. “What is happening?” Alexandra asked of no one in particular before repeating, “This cannot be real,” a few times as she took the stage. Sabrina seemed to answer as she sang, “That’s that me espresso.”

Seeing the shock, awe and surprise among the far more qualified Swifties felt delightful. Magical, even.

More Than Music

Keeping up with the chants and traditions and reading into seemingly innocuous details to guess Taylor’s upcoming outfits or surprise guests requires more work than most full-time jobs. It’s a task I will graciously leave up to the most dedicated Swifties. And it seems Taylor herself has taken this approach, too. 

In the middle of the show, she thanked fans for coming, noting that iconic traditions, like making and trading friendship bracelets, heart hands and chants in off-beats of some of her songs, are completely organic.

“Make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it” is only one line in the song “You’re On Your Own Kid.” Fans took it and ran with it, ultimately resulting in the now ever-present photo on our Instagram feeds of the giant friendship bracelet that adorned the Caesars Superdome all weekend.  

While I was impressed with the sparkly outfits and stacks of bracelets, the one part of the concert I keep seeing in my mind’s eye is the moms and dads proudly and tightly holding little hands and watching with sparkling eyes as their daughters and sons sang every word. The dad in the row behind us must have made four trips to the concession stand for water as his daughter and son just kept screaming. He smiled the whole time, winking at his wife with each return.

Watching them brought me back to a different time, an era, if you will, when I first discovered Taylor’s music.

I was 11 years old, sitting cross-legged on the floor of my great-grandparents’ living room in Marietta, Georgia. My great uncle Ben, a car dealership owner who knows everyone from Georgia to North Carolina, declared, “There’s this lil girl singing y’all ought to listen to. Swift. She’s gon’ be a superstar.” On the nine-hour drive back to Baton Rouge, my grandparents endured several rounds of her self-titled debut album, and a Swiftie was born. Since then, her songs have served as background music to many of my eras: dramatic preteen, party-hopping college student and heartbroken 20-something, to name a few.

The night I met my now-husband, I yelled “again” from the passenger seat of Alexandra’s car as “Enchanted” ended for the third time. And I yelled that same desperate “again” as Taylor ended her performance of the song Saturday night.

Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour is her gift to fans of all kinds—whether chronically online or just along for the ride. Swiftie or Swiftie Dad, it does not matter. There is something for everyone. The sheer physicality of her performance, which she often puts on in three-night stints, showcases her dedication to her fans and devotion to the art of performance. 

Simply put, Taylor, you left us all enchanted.

Click to enlarge the full photo gallery by Jordan Hefler.