Looking back at Edinburgh’s surprise songs at The Eras Tour
Taylor Swift performing on the Eras Tour. Credit: Unsplash
Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour is set to have its closing shows in Vancouver this weekend. Many Swifties have been reminiscing on the tour as a whole and looking back on many different elements of the tour such as the outfits, setlist changes, and of course, the surprise songs.
Surprise songs is the acoustic section towards the end of the concert, where Taylor performs songs on guitar and piano. At the beginning of the tour in America, she performed two songs in full each night, however, as Taylor progressed onto the international dates of the tour, she began to challenge herself by doing mash-ups
The mash-up trend began in Buenos Aries, where she performed the first mashup of 1989’s Is It Over Now? alongside Out of the Woods. The surprise song mash-ups proved to be a hit with fans and got people even more excited about the acoustic section of the show.
When the Eras Tour came to Edinburgh this summer over the 7th-9th June, anticipation for the surprise songs was high. On night one, Taylor performed a mash-up of Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve and I Know Places on guitar, and Tis’ the Damn Season and Daylight on piano.
On the second night in Edinburgh, she performed a live debut of The Bolter and Getaway Car on guitar, alongside All of the Girls You Loved Before and Crazier (live debut) on piano. Finally, on night three, Taylor mashed up It’s Nice to Have a Friend (live debut) and Dorothea on guitar, with a repeated mashup of Haunted and Exile on piano (previously performed in Sydney).
Many Scottish Swifties were delighted with the songs that Taylor performed acoustically in Edinburgh, with many of them being fan favourites and live debuts. One fan who attended night one and two said: “Yes!!! First of all, I got my favourite Taylor song ever with Daylight then we got the first ever live performance of both Crazier and The Bolter!!! We won for real.”
Another fan was thrilled with the performance of Crazier, saying: “A lot of the songs had never been done before and were really original. Crazier on night two started a tradition that went beyond her album songs and into her writing credits and movie soundtracks.” After performing Crazier in Edinburgh, she went on to perform songs that Swifties originally thought were unlikely to be performed such as This Is What You Came For in Liverpool.
Another fan commented on how we got a broad mix of albums for our surprise songs, they said: “We got a really fun mix of albums, and we had a lot of fan favourites. Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve and I Know Places changed lives.”
There was also a lot of love for Haunted with fans praising the songwriting of Haunted stating: “Haunted is a very well written song and I’d consider it one of her best. It’s also quite a different genre for her (the studio version) which she was able to transform into a beautiful piano piece.”
Overall, fans were absolutely over the moon with the surprise songs played at The Eras Tour this summer and can’t wait to see what else Taylor has in store for the final three shows in Vancouver this weekend.