“Hey, Stop!” is seen as one of the most iconic parts of this tour. It happened on May 13, 2023, when Swift yelled at a stadium security member to leave one of her fans alone during the song “Bad Blood.” Swift said, “She’s fine!” pointing at the fan, “She wasn’t doing anything!” The next day on May 14, the fan posted a TikTok story, giving her side of the story on her friend’s account under the user @caityg33. “Basically the guard had been harassing our group all night,” she said. “He just kept telling us not to touch the rail and any time we did anything, he was on top of us. Taylor noticed that I was having fun and that he didn’t like it and she didn’t like it, and he basically got escorted out and they got us all free tickets for the night.” That was just one iconic moment out of many on the tour.
Another moment was the Swift Quake in Seattle, Wash., on July 22-23, 2023. This was a 2.3 magnitude earthquake that occurred both nights, according to seismologist Jackie Caplan-Auerbach, and it actually was caused by the 72,000 fans dancing, jumping and singing. “I grabbed the data from both nights of the concert and quickly noticed they were clearly the same pattern of signals,” Caplan-Auerbach said, adding, “If I overlay them on top of each other, they’re nearly identical.” When comparing to the “Beast Quake” that was 0.3 magnitude, caused by football fans in 2011 at the same stadium, this was undoubtably more than twice the size.
Aside from those two iconic moments, the one that takes the win has to be the entire first night. No one knew what to expect, no one knew what would happen after the clock, no one knew the setlist and no one knew that the show would last three and a half hours! After that night, “Cruel Summer” became The Eras Tour song, essentially. After that night in Glendale, Ariz., the Swiftball timer became a thing, with Swifties guessing how long Swift’s standing ovation would be each night after her final “Champagne Problems” performance. Right before the first U.S. leg of the tour ended in the six-night run in Los Angeles, Swift received an eight-minute standing ovation from her fans, and it is important to note that this standing ovation was never just clapping or cheering; it was screaming from the fans to show their support to Swift.
As the tour continued, Swift gave Swifties even more surprises, but one of the more subtle ones was when Swift kept a note change in “And Take Her Home” from the song “the 1”, while performing the tour, and it got to a point where some Swifties began to expect it while listening to the actual song. Then, during one of her Nashville shows, it rained, and then rain shows became a part of the tour, where many Swifties hoped to get rain .
On June 24, 2023, in Minneapolis, Minn., Swift performed “Dear John” for the first time live in 11 years! “Long Live” even got added to the setlist on July 7, 2023 and stayed on the setlist until March 9, 2024, with the original koi fish guitar from her “Speak Now” era in 2010. In Los Angeles on Aug. 3, Swift gave the “22” hat to Bianka Bryant, Kobe and Vanessa Bryant’s daughter. In Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Nov. 10, 2023, Swift changed the lyric from “Karma” to “Karma is the guy on the Chiefs” from “Karma is the guy on the screen,” and this instantly went viral, and each show after that, fans listened closely to hear if she changed it for their show.
For the Super Bowl in 2023, Swift defied all odds to see her now-fiancé Travis Kelce play for the Kansas City Chiefs, by flying 12 hours to Japan afterwards and dealing with the seven-hour time change to perform her show that night. At Wembley Stadium on the first night to celebrate his 42nd birthday, the Prince of Wales attended with his children, and Swift then posted a selfie with all of them on her social media. After 131 shows with the same “Reputation” bodysuit, Swift came out in a new one on Night 1 of Miami on Oct. 18, 2024. In Swift’s second-to-last night in Toronto, she gave Swifties one of the most unhinged mashups with “Cassandra” x “Mad Woman” x “I Did Something Bad.” On April 22, 2023, at some point between the quick outfit change for “Anti Hero” from the “Midnights” era, and “Tolerate It,” the last song in the “Evermore” section of the set list, Swift cut her hand and had a pretty noticeable gash and still performed with it. Then on Nov. 20, 2023, during the “Lover” era, Swift’s Louboutin boot heel broke, and Swift momentarily stopped the performance to tear the heel part off and threw it to a fan in the crowd; after that Swift keep her heel in the position as if she still was wearing the heel and finished out the era set. Even with all of these iconic moments, there are still so many left, not to mention The Errors Tour. Because of all these, it has been common among Swifties, to know that every show is really famous for something.
**This is one of a six story series
