November 16, 2024, marked Taylor Swift’s third of six exciting and highly anticipated shows at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario. The Eras Tour is unique to Swift’s previous shows in which she would showcase her latest album, as this tour takes fans back through nearly two decades of Swift’s discography, playing all her greatest hits across her eleven albums. Her third night in Toronto marked her one hundred and forty-third performance of her over three-hour long show and is her second last city of the year and a half long tour, making the excitement of these finals shows that much more thrilling for fans lucky enough to get a ticket.
To kick off the evening, Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams took to the stage in a stunning pink gown to perform a number of her most recent hits from her latest album, The Secret of Us. She opened with “Risk” and continued with hits such as “I Love You, I’m Sorry,” “Let It Happen,” and “Free Now.” Abrams included a couple of new songs from the deluxe edition of the album, which was released a few weeks ago. Despite being recently released, fans had no trouble singing along to “That’s So True” and “21.” Abrams' charm was completely captivating as she interacted and waved at excited fans in the crowd. Abrams closed her set with “Close to You” and was met with a lot of love and cheers from fans as she left the stage.
After Abrams' exit and a brief intermission, a large countdown clock appeared behind the stage, building anticipation for the forty-nine thousand fans in attendance. As the countdown neared its finish, a background montage of some of Swift’s famous lyrics started to play, “It’s been a long time coming” being the most repeated and prominent of the lyrics. After six years and five new albums, not including her rerecordings, being released in that time, it truly had been a long time coming for Canadian fans excited for Swift to grace them with one of her show-stopping performances. The stage was filled with multiple dancers carrying large orange and pink tie-dyed fans, and out popped Swift in the middle of the stage in a dazzling orange sparkly bodysuit - and so the first era began - Lover! “The Lover Era” featured Swift’s hits such as “Cruel Summer,” “You Need to Calm Down,” and “The Man.” in which she put on a sparkling matching orange blazer.
Following “Lover,” Swift takes fans back to 2008 and transitioned to her “Fearless Era,” performing her singles such as “You Belong With Me,” “Love Story,” and the title track “Fearless.” Swift is seen in a gold bedazzled and tasselled body suit and made excellent use of her impressively large LED light-covered catwalk and diamond-shaped stage, creating breathtaking visuals such as turning the stage into a large acoustic guitar.
When entering the stadium fans were given an LED bracelet that allowed production to light up fans wrists and therefore the entire stadium in whatever colour fit the vibe of the song or era. It was no surprise when the whole stadium was lit up in red for the introduction of Swift’s oldest pop era “Red,” Swift had the entire stadium on their feet dancing to hits such as “We are Never Getting Back Together” and “I Knew You Were Trouble.” During her famous single “22,” a young fan was brought to the edge of the stage where Swift met her for a hug and gave her the hat Swift had been wearing on stage, before rejoining her backup dancers for the kick-line. Swift ended this era standing in the middle of the stage with a black, sparkly acoustic guitar, asking fans if "they had ten minutes to spare” and performed the extended version of “All Too Well.” As the number ended, snow-like confetti filled the air creating a truly magical moment.
After a brief “Speak Now Era” featuring Swift in a breathtaking purple ball gown singing “Enchanted,” the stage was then engulfed by a large serpent. The base immediately dropped, and her 2016 “Reputation Era” had begun! Swift wore a gold snake body suit and utilized her hydraulic stage platforms in many fun and creative ways that created varying shapes and stage heights for her and her dancers to perform on. She performed her famous singles “Ready For It?,” “Delicate,” and “Don’t Blame.” Like many moments throughout the evening, Swift interacted with fans and encouraged their participation through cheers and chants. Swift closed the era with “Look What You Made Me Do,” which featured her dancers dressed in iconic outfits from her various music videos trapped in large plexiglass boxes trying to escape as she recites the famous line, “The old Taylor can't come to the phone right now Why? Oh, 'cause she's dead.”
The large reputation snake mascot created with the stage visuals slithered its way into a peaceful forest. Large three-dimensional spruce trees were erected around the back edges of the stage and a cozy moss-covered cabin filled the middle. It was during this part of the evening where Swift performed many hits from her two 2020 pandemic albums, Folklore and Evermore. She performed all three parts of her teenage love trilogy starting with her laying on the roof of the moss-covered cabin to perform “Cardigan,” and continued on later in the set with the other two parts “Betty” and “August.” Other hits included shortened versions of “Illicit Affairs” and “Marjorie.” Swift, her backup dancers, and vocalists gave a hauntingly stunning performance of “My Tears Ricochet” as her backup dancers dressed in all black silently and slowly marched behind Swift down the catwalk. After her piano performance of “Champagne Problems,” the crowd erupted into cheers and “Taylor Taylor Taylor” chants that lasted several minutes and brought Swift to tears. She closed this era out matching her dancers wearing a green velvet cloak and performing “Willow.” The dancer's synchronization as they danced and tossed golden glowing orbs into the air to the music was the perfect ending to the mystical forest-themed era.
If fans were ever brought off their feet they were certainly brought back onto them for Swift’s pop-anthem era, 1989. Swift came out in a blue and orange two-piece crop top skirt outfit opening with “Style” followed by “Blank Space.” Dancers rode around the stage on blue glowing bicycles and swung matching glowing golf clubs. The performance of “Shake It Off” turned the Rogers Centre into the city's largest dance party. Swift brought the heat when she ended the era with a shortened version of “Bad Blood” fully equipped with blazing hot flame effects that lit up the entire stadium.
The bright dazzling colours from 1989 turned to moody black and white contrasts when Swift entered in a white high-low dress to perform hits from her most recent album, The Tortured Poets Department. This most recent era was first seen in Paris this past May following the release of the album at the end of April 2024. She opened this portion of the night with “But Daddy I Love Him” and continued with songs such as “Whose Afraid of Little Old Me?” and “Fortnight.” Swift ends this era by showing her humorous side with a skit done with her backup dancers. This skit shows herself not wanting to perform while her dancers carry her and change her into a black two-piece outfit with a gold jacket while encouraging her to get out there, all the while she plays up a tantrum. The skit ends with her turning very abruptly going from sulking to full performance mode and therefore leads into her most recent single “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.”
From here, we enter into the portion of the evening that makes every Eras Tour show unique to the others - the acoustic set - wildly known by the fans as the surprise songs. The acoustic set looks different each night. Swift has been known to bring out a guest to sing a duet, but often times this is a chance for her to be on stage solo with an instrument creating interesting, fun and emotional mash-ups of songs from all her eleven albums - and on November 16, fans got both! Swift started out with her acoustic guitar and gave a speech to the audience about her pride in her shared Grammy nomination with Gracie Abrams for their song "Us." She then told fans there was no better way to celebrate this achievement than to perform the song live and reintroduced Abrams to the stage. The two started off with an acoustic performance of "Us," then Swift effortlessly flowed into "Into the Woods" from her 1989 album creating an excellent mash-up. Abrams then exited the stage and Swift moved onto her brown floral-painted piano. Swift started off with what could be called the surprise song anthem of this tour, “You're on Your Own, Kid.” The second Swift sang the first couple of words, the crowd erupted into cheers knowing they would get to hear the famous line, “So make the friendship bracelets.” Making Taylor Swift-themed friendship bracelets and trading them with other Swifties has been a key aspect to this whole tour. Swifties were seen participating in friendship bracelet trading during the concert and throughout Toronto the entire weekend, and this can all be attributed to that one casual line in “You’re on Your Own, Kid,” which explained the excitement fans had to hear this iconic song live. Swift mashed up this famous song with an emotional song “Long Story Short” with the famous line, “Long story short, I survived.” A line many fans have tattooed on their arms as a reminder to how they got through the tough times in their lives. These two songs were effortlessly seemed together by Swift who had a large smile on her face as the crowd screamed and cheered, letting her know she did a fantastic job crafting their surprise songs.
After a remarkable acoustic set, Swift is seen literally diving into the stage and disappearing from the fans' view as the stage visuals show her swimming down the catwalk. Swift then pops back up at the back of the stage in a dark purple sparkly t-shirt dress and purple fuzzy coat for her final era of the evening, Midnights. It is in this show-stopping finale she performed hits “Lavender Haze,” “Anti-Hero,” “Midnight Rain,” “Bejeweled,” and “Mastermind.” The choreography for a steamy execution of “Vigilante Shit” had Swift and her dancers performing with black metal chairs in dark shimmering body suits. The entire evening ended with a glamorous rendition of “Karma” with Swift and her team all coming out in different coloured sparkly tasselled jackets and putting on a playful, energetic, and show-stopping performance which ended with colourful confetti raining down from the sky.
The overall atmosphere in that stadium the whole night was like nothing I’ve encountered before. Anyone fortunate enough to attend would agree that it really was a “you had to be there” experience. Taylor Swift really went all out with this tour from the costumes to the stage visuals, but it was the eighteen years of beautifully crafted lyrics that brought fans to the Eras Tour, and how personal and intimate she managed to make each show is what caused so many fans to travel all around the world to see the show as many times as they could. The entire tour was more than just a concert, it was a whole experience for fans. From picking a unique outfit to wear to making and trading friendship bracelets, the entire ambience was of positivity, bonding, and community, a unique environment Swift created for her fans. In general, I left with no question as to why this tour was in such high demand as it really was an experience of a lifetime.