The first time I saw Taylor Swift live, I was eleven years old. It was 2010, and the country popstar made her way to my home state of Massachusetts for the final night on her Fearless tour. A ’13’ on my hand, a new concert tee layered over the yellow Rolling Stone shirt I carefully picked out weeks prior, and face paint proudly denoting “I <3 Taylor” on my cheek, I found my balcony seats with my family and immediately began to cry. 14 years and many tours later (Speak Now, Red, 1989, Reputation), I make my way to the Eras Tour in London, where I now reside, with the same butterflies and anticipation of my elementary school self.

Every tour of Taylor’s has sprinkled magical memories into my life, but the Eras Tour is something else entirely. Making her way through 18 years of music, Taylor goes album by album — taking us back to childhood crushes, high school drama, first loves, quarantine fixations, and everything in between. For three and a half hours, my emotions take on a life of their own — and I let them go wherever they want.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Swift’s voice cascaded around Wembley Stadium, before a sparkly Loverified Swift popped up on the largest stage I’ve ever seen to the loudest crowd I’ve ever heard. I think back to her 2010 documentary, Journey to Fearless, in which a young teenage Taylor jumps up and down backstage upon hearing the crowd chanting, exclaiming, “That’s my name they’re saying! That’s my name they’re saying!” She had no idea what was to come, though I’d like to say her fans always did.

The first time Swift performed in London, she was 17 and gracing a stage at King’s College. The second, she played Shepherd’s Bush Empire. “From there, you just continued to support me more and more,” she shared to the 88,446 people in the crowd. “The rooms got gradually bigger and bigger, and now you’ve done this. You’ve sold out three nights at Wembley in June and five more nights in August. That means we get to play Wembley Stadium eight times this summer because of you. It’s only because of you.”

“I always think about why it is that the Eras Tour is my favourite thing I’ve ever gotten to be a part of. Because I’ve been touring since I was 15. We’ve gotten to have a lot of fun memories, but this one just feels more special, more fun, more exciting than any tour I’ve ever done. And I think it’s because we get to take all the memories that we’ve made over the years, over the last, you know, 18 to 20 years that I’ve been playing shows, and we’ve put them all in one show. And plus, never in my life have I gotten to play for crowds as wonderfully generous as we’ve gotten to see here on the Eras Tour. And Wembley Stadium, night one, you are blowing our minds already.”

The show, which transitioned from the Lover set (which more than made up for the cancelled Loverfest I had tickets to before Covid-19) to Fearless to Red, went era by era. While I knew the Fearless section would bring me to tears, reminding me of fifth grade iMovie dances and my sixth grade alarm clock (the first few notes of the title track still make me think it’s time for school), it was the Red set that I keep coming back to. While everyone watches Swift dancing and skipping to “22,” my eyes go directly to the edge of the catwalk — where a young girl sits, plucked from the audience to receive Taylor’s signature hat. Much like watching a groom on the wedding day while the bride walks down the aisle, I see the girl, around the age I was at the Fearless tour, well up with excitement, shake with anticipation, and then become too stunned to speak as Taylor embraces her in a hug and places the hat on her head. I think about the new generation of girls growing up with Taylor’s music and influence and about how lucky I have been to do the same.

As Swift makes her way into the folklore/evermore segment of the show, I am reminded of a quarantine summer — of finding moments of joy and escapism through music and imagination. She talks of crafting the folklore cabin in her mind and of telling stories as a narrator versus her typical first person accounts. She sings the holy trinity (the teenage love affair — “Cardigan,” “Betty,” and “August”), a goosebump-inducing “Marjorie” with guests’ cell phone flashlights swaying in synchronicity with her grandmother’s backing vocals, and fan-favourite “champagne problems” — which sparked a several minute long standing ovation that may have gone on all night if Swift didn’t stop it herself.

During 1989, I remember the first time Taylor released a song classified as pop. I think about her move to New York, her freshly cut bob, her early work with producer Jack Antonoff, and her nights connecting with fans on Tumblr. I remember her standing up for herself against the media’s dating speculation, veering into topics of feminism and equality she previously shied away from. I remember debates with classmates over how undervalued women’s lyrics are compared to their male counterparts – reduced to who songs are about instead of the craft and skillful storytelling.

With reputation, I think of the year she disappeared from the public eye — of the scrutiny and hate she got, and how that taught me that no matter how right you are, people are always going to believe what they want to believe. But, ultimately, that if you stay honest and kind, things have a way of coming back around.

The Tortured Poets Department set — the newest addition to the tour, added for the European leg — might be the most complex stage design of the show. Opening with black and white graphics featuring floating furniture and a deserted road, Swift appears in a custom Vivienne Westwood gown covered in song lyrics, a cross between a wedding dress and crumpled up piece of paper. From “But Daddy I Love Him” and “So High School,” she slides (literally) into “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” on a gliding podium swiftly moving her around the catwalk. A full bed frame moves onto the stage for “Fortnight,” a UFO appears on screen for “Down Bad,” and an entire marching band joins Swift for “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.” Besides belting the aforementioned song’s bridge, the highlight was certainly the closing number of the era — an old Hollywood, slightly meta performance of “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.” In front of a projected marquee of the “The Eras Tour”, a limp Swift gets dragged through the steps of preparing for a show. Her dancers strip her down to a matching set, struggle her arms into a shimmering jacket, put her heels on, and usher her forward despite her protests. When the music starts, she snaps into performance mode — just like the song describes.

The next segment — the acoustic section — is the only portion that isn’t dedicated to any singular album. Picking surprise songs for each show, Swift plays something different each night, whether tracks from her debut album or never-before-played TTPD songs. For London Night 1, she mashed up “Hits Different” and “Death By a Thousand Cuts” on the guitar — two of her favourite bridges, she explained halfway through, as she wanted to try to combine them into a “mega bridge” (she succeeded) — and “The Black Dog,” “Come Back… Be Here,” and “Maroon” on the piano. Even during a highly choreographed, organised production, she finds time to play around and try something new — and it’s one of her core fans’ favourite parts.

As Taylor starts Midnights, I can see the crowd counting the eras. It’s her last. I take a deep breath and forget everything going on in my life — the deadlines, the drama, the early mornings to come. The only thing I let myself focus on is the stadium. The dancers, the band, the set design, Taylor. The crowd, the twenty-something girl going through a heartbreak, the newly engaged couple who met through Swift, the teenage boy who came alone singing every word. The parents who made their kids’ dreams come true by scoring them tickets, the kids spinning around in sparkly dresses beside me. The people who grew up with Taylor, the people who watched them grow up, and the people who will never know a world without “(Taylor’s Version)”.

I think about the first time I saw Taylor live, how little I knew about the next decade and a half to come, and all the albums and eras and memories between then and now. To me, that’s what the Eras Tour felt like: pride and joy and bittersweet nostalgia for all the stages of my life, for all the lessons we’ve learned, and all the music that’s been by our side through it all. And, of course, all the memories to come.