After months of countdowns and excited outfit planning, Aussies are now well and truly in the middle of our Eras era.
Taylor Swift kicked off her record-breaking tour at Melbourne’s MCG on Friday, drawing an audience of 96,000, the biggest of her career to date.
The superstar’s three nights in Melbourne saw everything from celebrity attendances and multiple proposals to pandemonium outside the MCG – also known as Taylor-gating.
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Behind the scenes, we heard stories of fans scoring last minute tickets and the singer’s dad Scott Swift, also known as Papa Swift, even upgrading fans to VIP seats.
Next weekend will be Sydney’s turn, as she kicks off four consecutive dates from Friday before taking the tour to Asia.
You can read the full rundown of night one of the Eras Tour Melbourne here. In case you weren’t one of the lucky ones in the crowd this weekend, here’s what you missed.
Taylor thanks all 288,000 Melbourne fans for attending
On night three, the final night of her Melbourne stop, Swift took a moment to get emotional about the career high tour attendance numbers at the MCG shows.
During her opening Lover set, the pop star thanked all 288,000 fans from across the three nights for turning up to her record-breaking shows.
Watch the video above.
“96,000 people the first night, 96,000 people the second night, 96,000 people tonight,” Swift began in a fan captured video from the heartwarming speech.
“All of that, those are all the biggest shows I’ve ever played on a tour and you did it three times. The math is that it’s 288,000 people in three nights,” she revealed.
“Melbourne, you are the love of my life. I cannot believe you, what have you done.”
“It’s just incredibly nice to do for someone. Make them feel welcome like that,” she said.
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After her final Melbourne show on Sunday night, Swift took to Instagram on Monday morning to thank fans again for the ‘unforgettable’ experience.
“Melbourne, what do I even say to you after over 288,000 of you came and danced with us in the last 3 nights ??! That was unforgettable,” she captioned a pic from the show.
“You were on another LEVEL. Thank you for the memories. I’ll revisit the ones from this weekend often,” she added.
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Pandemonium outside the MCG as Taylor-gating takes over
For those fans who missed out on nabbing tickets to Swift’s Melbourne shows, they didn’t let that stop them from enjoying the singer’s 44 song set.
Outside the MCG, hundreds of ticketless fans set up picnics, dressed up and sang along to the concert in what has become known as ‘Taylor-gating’.
The phenomenon was first seen at the singer’s kick-off North America tour, and has since been embraced by Swifties around the world looking to join in on the concert fun and hoping to score last minute tickets inside.
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Many fans shared their experiences trading friendship bracelets and singing along to the pop star’s tracks from outside the stadium to social media.
“Taylorgating, going from crowd to quiet space depending on whether I wanted to sing at the top of my lungs (crowd) or just close my eyes and listen,” one fan shared to X.
“I literally had almost as much fun taylorgating as I did going like a totally different vibe but soo much fun,” one fan shared about the experience.
One attendee estimated there were around 100,000 people outside the MCG alone.
“+ ~100K outside the stadium Taylorgating !! I am one of them right now …” the wrote.
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The celebrities go wild for Taylor Swift
It wasn’t just the everyday Aussie who fought to get tickets to see Taylor Swift.
The singer’s three-night concert stop in Melbourne was frequented by celebrities who went wild for Swift in the crowds.
From actors to singers, athletes and internet stars, the Eras Tour Melbourne was a star-studded event.
Olympia Valance, Andy Lee and Rebecca Harding, Missy Higgins and Chrissie Swan were amongst the A-lister attendees at Swift’s record-breaking Aussie shows.
There were also some sporting couples who turned the concert into a sequin-filled date night. AFL star Josh Daicos and his girlfriend Annalise Dalins joined in on the concert fun, while Geelong player Tom Hawkins tagged along with his Swiftie wife Emma.
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There were also some adorable mother-daughter duos at the MCG, with swimmer Giaan Rooney bringing her little one along and sharing a pic of the friendship bracelets they took home from the memorable night.
Tammy Hembrow also took her daughter Saskia along to see the superstar in Melbourne, with the pair rocking cowboy hats for the sparkly occasion.
One of the most iconic moments to come out of the celeb attendances had to be rapper G Flip singing along to Swift’s track Cruel Summer.
Fans will remember the rapper covered the exact same track earlier this year, which even got ‘liked’ by Swift herself.
‘Baby just say yes’: There were even some proposals
If there’s ever a more magical time to propose, it would be while Taylor Swift is serenading you with her romantic hit, Love Story. Many Aussie couples did just that.
During Love Story, one couple Jules and Kesh got engaged to the sound of Swift singing “he knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring and said ‘Marry me’..”
In the viral moment captured on TikTok, Kesh pulled out a ring box from their pocket and got on one knee to propose.
Aussie singer G-Flip even commented on the video with a sweet “omg this is beautiful.”
Who got the 22 hat?
Swifties know that at each show, Swift will adorably gift one chosen fan her hat that she wears while performing 22 – the same style as from her costume in the music video.
With three Melbourne shows, that meant Swift gave away her black signed hats to three lucky fans.
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Swift gave her hat away to two young girls on both night one and three of the tour.
While the singer typically gifts the costume piece to her younger fans, on night two she gave the 22 hat to 24-year-old social media star Oliver Mills.
Mills shared videos of the sweet moment the pop star hugged him and then had some heartwarming words for him.
“She said, “I love your videos, you’re so funny”, and then I said something… probably unintelligible, and then I got a second hug,” Mills told Today.
Before the concert, Mills posted videos of his concert look, where he dressed as Swift’s producer Jack Antonoff from a viral clip where the pair were in the studio coming up with the lyrics to Getaway Car. The song was then played that night as a surprise song.
What were the surprise songs at Eras Tour Melbourne?
During her 44 song set, Swift treats fans to two different songs from her discography each show. The singer plays one on piano and another on guitar.
The surprise songs have become of the most exciting parts of the Eras Tour for fans, making each show unique and adding some suspense to the three-hour show.
While the singer previously said that she would only play each song once unless she messed it up, Swift restarted the list after her North America leg and during her final Melbourne night, retracted the rule completely.
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“I want to be as creative as possible with the acoustic set moving forward and I don’t want to limit anything or say, ‘Oh, if I played this song, I can’t play it again,'” she told the crowd, adding that she no longer wants to “take any paint colours out of the paintbox.”
“I want to be able to play songs more than once if I feel like it and I want to be able to make changes to songs. Does that sound OK?”
So now that we know there’s hope Sydney could hear these songs live too, here’s the surprise songs that Swift played across her three nights in Melbourne.
Red (guitar)You’re Losing Me (piano)Getaway Car / August / The Other Side Of The Door mashup (guitar)This Is Me Trying (piano)Come Back Be Here / Daylight mashup (guitar)Teardrops On My Guitar (piano)
What she implied about Joe Alwyn
Of course, Swift didn’t mention her ex-boyfriend by name. But fans have picked up on some subtle clues left by the singer – mostly in her choice of surprise songs – which could be hinting at why their relationship ended.
Night one saw Swift sing You’re Losing Me, a heartwrenching ballad about being in a relationship with someone who seems to have lost interest in making things work.
Released in 2023 as a bonus track on Midnights, the song was actually written in 2021 – which means there were cracks in her relationship with Alwyn more than a year before they split.
This weekend, there were also unverified reports circling online that Alwyn had allegedly cheated on the singer with a co-worker. Of course, we have no idea whether these are true or not.
But Swift’s surprise songs on night two seemed to tell a story.
On Saturday night, when Swift picked up her guitar for the acoustic set, she performed a mash-up of three songs: Getaway Car, August, and The Other Side Of The Door. Swifties were quick to pick up on the fact that all three of these songs are about cheating in a relationship.
Also, this was super notable because it’s only the second time she’s done a surprise song mashup on the Eras Tour.
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The first was when she added the Out of the Woods bridge to Is It Over Now? after a TikTok went viral comparing how similar the songs sounded.
Again, we can’t really draw conclusions from anything – but the online Swifties certainly are.
They’ve also resurfaced a video of her singing Should’ve Said No from earlier in the Eras Tour. She sings the line “was she worth it?” before looking at the audience and shaking her head – considering this another form of evidence that Alwyn was unfaithful.
What she said about The Tortured Poets Department
As we all know, Swift announced that she’ll be releasing a new album, The Tortured Poets Department, on April 19.
Though we already have the tracklist for the album, thanks to a post that Swift made on social media revealing the back cover, she decided to use her first Melbourne show to share the track name of a bonus song, which will be available on some versions of the album.
The song is called The Bolter, and she projected the new album edition cover onto the screens around the MCG as she sang You’re Losing Me.
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As she was announcing the song, Swift spoke a little bit about the process of making her new album.
“I was talking to you earlier about my new album. So, basically, I’m very excited for April 19th, because The Tortured Poets Department will be out on that date, and I cannot wait for you to hear all of those songs then,” Swift said.
“This album, this new one, Tortured Poets, is an album that I think, more than any of my albums that I’ve ever made, I needed to make it.”
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“It was really a lifeline for me, just the things I was going through, and the things I was writing about, it kind of reminded me of why songwriting is something that actually gets me through my life.”
“And I’ve never had an album where needed songwriting more than I’d needed it on Tortured Poets. And I wanted to show you something tonight, because we’ve got an alternate cover to The Tortured Poets Department that nobody has seen, and there’s an exclusive song on this vinyl called The Bolter.”
“So this is called The Bolter edition. Look at that cover! It’s so tortured, so poetic. So, I’m going to just show that to you here in Melbourne, because you’ve just been the best that you could possibly be. I’ve never played this song live before. It’s one of my favourites,” she concluded, before playing You’re Losing Me.
Swift also made a joke about people calling her album by the wrong name – apart from Speak Now and her self-titled debut, TTPD is her first album with more than one word in the title.
“You could call it ‘Tortured Poets’ if you just refuse to memorise more than one-word album titles,” she told the Melbourne crowd from the stage on night two.