In a plot twist worthy of a fourth-wall-breaking musical montage, Taylor Swift kicked off the European leg of her Eras Tour in Paris by reinventing the very thing she is famous for reinventing every few months: herself, her music and, incidentally, her entire concert setlist.
Wednesday night at La Défense Arena saw the debut of what could only be described as a heavily remixed, generously retextured and possibly thesis-length-expanded version of Swift’s Eras Tour. Having already run the numbers on over fifty shows in North and South America where fans could predict her setlist with the accuracy of a Swiss watch, Swift clearly decided that some chaos was in order. So chaos she delivered, in a bedazzled midnight jumpsuit no less.
In what concertgoers immediately dubbed the “Tortured Poets Department Era” — after the title of Swift’s most recent and predictably record-shattering album — she carved out an entirely new segment for those songs, elbowing aside earlier entries like a headliner trying to get through a red-carpet crowd. The segment, which clocked in at around half an hour, added a moody monochrome aesthetic, five costume changes loaded with enough symbolism to fill a grad school seminar and a typewriter motif evocative of an author who is serious about their metaphors and very serious about their aesthetic.
“This post is dedicated to the new Tortured Poets section of the Eras Tour (aka Female Rage: the Musical!)” Swift declared on social media, because branding is as eternal as heartbreak, and twice as profitable.
The new section featured songs such as “Fortnight,” “Down Bad” and “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” the last of which was performed with the kind of dramatic flair that suggests Swift may already be halfway through rehearsals for her inevitable Broadway debut. Dancers in medical-themed costumes diagnosed her heartbreak as terminal, while Swift theatrically collapsed and changed costumes behind a screen with the speed of a magician tired of rabbits. All of it was very on brand and just slightly off the rails.
Among observant fan theorists, also known as Swifties with Wi-Fi and spreadsheets, drama levels reached DEFCON 1 when they noticed “The Archer,” a staple from her Lover era, had been quietly dropped. The whispers of outrage and confusion almost drowned out the applause, as people speculated whether the song had been excommunicated, retired or simply sent on a holiday until further notice.
All in all, Swift performed 46 songs over a four-hour performance that may one day be eligible for academic credit. Four of those were from Lover, seven from Fearless, five from Red, six from Midnights and five from the new album segment. The acoustic section received its own dose of novelty, with Swift performing a mash-up of “Paris” and “loml” while cheerily noting that a song titled “Paris” had never been played in Paris before. Truly, irony lives in the details.
And while the fans went home euphoric, exhausted and possibly flu-ridden from screaming indoors for four hours straight, there is little doubt that Taylor Swift has reinvented her Eras Tour into an Eras Tour 2.0, complete with plot twists, costume quick changes and just enough melodrama to please both seasoned Swifties and Timothée Chalamet fans wandering in by mistake.
Turns out, even in Paris, the era of surprise is never out of style.