Taylor Swift started the Cruel Summer early on Mar. 17 with her infamous, Ticketmaster-smashing Era’s Tour. 

Taylor Swift is a pop-country icon who has accumulated many awards and gained fans through her songs which highlight failed relationships, however, her recent albums have been about finding oneself. In Midnight Rain, a song from her most recent album, Midnights (2022), she reveals how she left a relationship to prioritize her career. “He wanted it comfortable/I wanted that pain/He wanted a bride I was making my own name/Chasing that fame/He stayed the same…” 

Furthermore, Swift is giving her fans a once-in-a-lifetime experience with a three-hour concert including 44 songs selected from her entire discography, such as Love Story, 22, Bad Blood, Shake it Off, Blank Space, and Bejeweled. Many of her fans are ecstatic to relive their nostalgia for her former stages. 

To add to the excitement, Swift has two big-name openers: Beabadoobee and Gayle. Beabadoobee is a British-Filipina singer-songwriter who mainly writes bedroom pop and soft rock, who went viral on Tiktok for Powfu’s remix of Coffee from her 2018 album, Patched Up. Recently, however, Beabadoobee has been making rounds with her newest album, Beatopia, and there have been many fan favorites such as Glue Song and Ripples. On the other hand, GAYLE is an American singer-songwriter who went viral on Tiktok for abcdefu which has been streamed over 782,000,000 million times globally. 

In addition to including 44 songs and two openers, the production of the Eras tour is also outstanding, specifically the costumes. Swift begins the tour with a bodysuit decked out in blue crystals, and as the show progresses, she changes into a multitude of her iconic outfits from her former years. 

On Tiktok, Swift fanatics of all ages are dressing up as her old eras. One video entails a group of young girls dressed up as Swift from her Fearless era, while a group of friends dressed up from her most-watched MV, Shake It Off. 

Not only is Swift a singer, but in past years she has also been vocal about her political standing and is an activist. In her documentary, Miss Americana, which is streaming on Netflix, Swift vocalized her progressive political standing and shared that she was no longer going to succumb to her title of being a “nice girl.”

“A nice girl smiles and waves and says thank you. A nice girl doesn’t make people feel uncomfortable with her views,” Swift said in the documentary.

As an avid music listener, it’s refreshing to see someone like Swift who has strong opinions on a particular subject and strives to enact change. 

This Era’s Tour is probably the most sought-after concert of this year which left Ticketmaster in shambles after her “Swifties” overloaded the website. After this mess, Swift felt inclined to address her fans on her Instagram story. 

“It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them,” Swift said. “And to those who didn’t get tickets, all I can say is that my hope is to provide more opportunities for us to get together and sing these songs.” 

According to Forbes, this tour could make Swift a billionaire.

“Since that $500 million estimate assumes an average ticket price of $215, her take could be as much as $1.5 billion if the average ticket price is $700…” Peter Cohan, contributor of Forbes magazine said. “If you add in possible international dates, her total take could be even higher.”

Overall, Swift has proven that she is no longer Fifteen and that she is more than “America’s Sweetheart.” She is a pop icon who has brought together all walks of life in a celebration of music, and although I was not able to secure tickets for her concert, seeing her infectious energy through online videos is enough to fill the Blank Space in my heart.