When you think friendship goals, I hope you think of Taylena! Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez have been friends for 12, almost 13 years. Which is monumental since it’s Swift’s favorite number. Gomez and Swift first found each other back when the Jonas Brother‘s were still a thing! Although many things have changed over the years, hairstyles, homes, boyfriends, one thing has never fallen apart, their friendship!
Like tradition would have it, Swift brought Selena out to be a special guest on her Reputation Stadium Tour, like she has each tour! They performed Gomez’s song “Hands To Myself” which is a favorite of Taylor’s.
Swift shared a sweet picture of the two with the caption:
“To the person I could call at any time of day, who has been there no matter what… you absolutely KILLED IT tonight and everyone was so excited to see you. I love you, and 60,000 people at the Rose Bowl loved you too.”
Gomez echoed the sentiments, sharing a picture of the two backstage with the caption:
“I’m grateful for those I surround myself with. And this woman right here happens to be one of my favorites. Love our tradition and I love you.”
Not only did they have an electrifying performance, but Gomez made a surprise speech that even caught Swift off guard. She chokes up as she shares how much Swift and their friendship means and thanking everyone for supporting her because she is the kindest of humans.
WATCH SELENA’S HEARTWARMING SPEECH TO TAYLOR SWIFT
“I have to say thank you to my best friend of about 12 years, almost 13, she’s been one of my best friends, because this person has never ever judged a single decision I’ve made, she has always met me where I’ve been, she has encouraged me when I’ve had nothing to be encouraged about, and I don’t know if I would be as strong as I am if I didn’t have you and your family, because you’ve changed my life. But honestly, thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting someone that I know is the most beautiful, strong, independent woman I’ve ever met, so thank you as her best friend.”
Swift tried to hug her during it, but Gomez wasn’t finished and swatted her away so she could continue gushing about her! Can you say friendship goals?
We are getting serious 1989 vibes as Taylor Swift‘s first special guest on her Reputation Stadium Tour was Shawn Mendes who opened for her during the 1989 World Tour. Swift shared some behind the scenes footage of their rehearsal, along with a picture and a video from the actual performance!
Mendes is the first special guest of the Reputation Stadium Tour and coincidentally the song they performed “There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back” also has the word reputation in it!
You take me places that tear up my reputation
Manipulate my decisions
Baby, there’s nothing holdin’ me back
This was the third stop on Swift’s “Baby Tour” as she called it and she recalled that it was her 40th show in Southern California. Her first show was to a crowd of about 43 and now she is playing to a crowd of about 60,000! It was Swift’s first time playing the Rose Bowl and also her first time ever being at the Rose Bowl, she told the crowd she definitely understood the allure!
WATCH A CLIP OF TAYLOR SWIFT AND SHAWN MENDES PERFORM “THERE’S NOTHING HOLDIN’ ME BACK”
Wouldn’t it be great if every special guest has a song with the word “reputation” in it? Do you think there will be a theme? As far as Swift not having a special guest at the other two shows, we think the show is so big and so great it doesn’t need special guests, and there definitely shouldn’t be one there night 1! Everyone should just experience the magic of the show on it’s own! Also, LA is a big city so there isn’t always going to be a guest in every city, but that’s okay because Swift puts on an amazing show compelete with fireworks!
May 8, 2018 – Taylor Swift kicked off her Reputation Stadium Tour in Glendale, AZ. It was 105 degrees outside, but thankfully it was much cooler inside, with the stadium being closed. The atmosphere was electric as Swifties have been waiting over two years since the end of her last tour… 879 days but honestly baby who’s counting? It being opening night, the crowd was a lot more diverse than her typical city to city shows. Fans flew from all around the country and even internationally to be the first to experience opening night of the Reputation Stadium Tour.
In case you’re keeping track, the song that plays to the crowd before the lights dim and Swift takes the stage is “Bad Reputation” by Joan Jet & The Blackhearts. There is a very intense intro, that is a montage of negative Media headlines and news reportings.
“This is the first time photographers have caught T Swift on film in six weeks…” “Taylor Swift is on top of the world, but has she done some sketchy things to get there?” “She holds too many grudges.”
Watch the intro below:
The show then begins with “…Ready For It?” which was definitely thought to be the opening number since she opened all of her Jingle Ball shows with it. Everything is a big production and the stage is amazing. The dancers costumes and the back up singers (known by the fandom as The Starlights) are much more involved in the dancing and singing on stage this tour!
She continues with “I Did Something Bad” and there are some fireworks that go off during the number, then all of the dancers and Starlights are laying on the ground as she sings “They’re burning all the witches even if you aren’t one.” They slowly rise and lift Taylor up in the air as she sings “So light me up (light me up).”
“Gorgeous” is next and Swift shares the stage with her female singers and dancers and takes the time to introduce them all by name before introducing herself, (as she does every tour after the third song) “And I’m Taylor, thanks for coming.”
Mashups were a big thing this tour, which allowed Swift to mix her older catalog with the new, which shows similarities in emotions. It’s something Swift later explained she did because of seeing how fans wanted the tour and getting ideas from her fans that made it into the show.
“You know, one of the things that I love about being able to keep track of you guys online is that…well, first of all, I had a lot of time to plan this tour. We’ve been planning this tour, including the stage design and everything, for about 14 months. And in that time, I was able to see what you guys were posting online, see what you guys were hoping would happen on the tour, and a lot of those things ended up being ideas on the drawing board when making the actual tour. So I tried to put together a tour that seemed to be a combination of all the things you were saying you wanted on the tour. So if you’re liking something, it’s pretty easy to let us know if we’re on the right track. You just scream.”
Of course, the crowd erupted into massive screams at that point. So the next medley was “Style” “Love Story” and “You Belong With Me.” Swift has played “Love Story” for every headlining tour she has performed. She said a long time ago it’s the one song she will always plays. It was definitely interesting, before going into this show to see if she still would. It’s nice to know some things never change.
It was time to really break out the snakes! The next part of the tour was really heavy on the snake thing and it came full force with “Look What You Made Me Do” (tilted stage and giant snakes included).
Comedian, Tiffany Haddish whom Swift did Saturday Night Live with, appeared on-screen to let the crowd know the old Taylor couldn’t come to the phone right now… why? Because she’s dead! (See video below).
Sadly, Ed Sheeran and Future were not special guests so Swift has revamped the song so she can sing it solo. Hopefully the trio can do it all together for a future show!
“King Of My Heart” was next and six huge drums filled the stage and so many snakes! Her dancers really had to prove she is their American SNAKE Queen! The production on this tour is truly amazing! The panels that make up the screens come and go, making way for a two-story stage where her band (known as The Agency) can be seen. It’s truly a treat to see them as a lot of songs they aren’t visible and they are after all, fan favorites.
There aren’t quite as many speeches this tour, but the ones she has are long and very heartfelt. She tells her fans how much she misses them, and how she used to have this cycle of putting out an album and going on tour every two years, but that she needed to see what it was like to not have a spotlight on her all the time, and how important that was to her. See the full quote below.
“So, ever since I was about 16 years old I’ve been living my life and my career on a pretty predictable schedule. I would put out an album, go on tour, put out an album, go on tour, put out an album, go on tour. This happened 5 times in a row exactly like that. So, the first time that I ever broke that pattern was with this last album and this last tour, I decided that it was really important to me to figure out who I would be and what my life would be like if I didn’t have a spotlight on me all the time. And it turned out it was really important for me. But I really did miss you guys. Because you know, I think one thing that every single person in this stadium has in common is that every single one of us is pining away for a sense of connection from someone else. Whether it’s a friendship or you want to fall in love or you just want someone to say to you ‘you feel that way? Oh, I feel that way too, I feel that way all the time.’ There’s something that happens with your brain and your heart when someone just says ‘yes, I understand how you feel, I felt that way too.’ And so, standing here on this stage, when I look out into a crowd and I see that you’re singing along to the words of a song that I wrote when I was in a really low place or a lonely place, that’s that sense of connection its like ‘oh, you felt that way too, okay, that makes me feel a little better about having felt that way.’ And when it comes to connection, I think that reaching out and saying ‘here’s how I feel, how do you feel about that?’ is a really brave thing to do. Because, whether its a friendship or its someone you really, really have a crush on, or someone you want to be with, someone you wish would want to see all your sights with you and walk all of your steps with you. First of all, its brave to want that, and its brave to vocalise that you want that and verbalize it. Because, on one hand, on one hand you have this miraculous, incredible chance that person will look at you and go ‘yes, I want that too.’ Either, ‘I want to be your friend’, or ‘yes, I want to be with you, I want to get to know you better, I want all that with you.’ But there’s also this devastating, heartbreaking possibility that this person will look at you and say ‘I’m sorry, I don’t want that, I don’t want to get to know you better, I don’t want those things with you.’ And that’s why I think it’s really brave to put yourself out there and go searching for someone who feels the way you feel because it’s all really, relationships, it’s just delicate, you know.”
Naturally, this lead her to sing “Delicate” as she got into a lit up bubble that carried her from the main stage to a smaller, heart-shaped stage towards the middle stage right side of the stadium.
When she gets to the B stage, she is joined by her dancers and giant snakes as she sings “Shake It Off.” Half of her dancers are on the B stage with her and the other half are on the other B stage, that is on the stage left side of the stadium. SURPRISE! Charlie XCX and Camila Cabello (the two opening acts) join her to shake shake shake.
Colorful confetti shoots into the crowd around the B stage she is at and she then launches into another speech and explains how the fans have shaped this tour and thanked them for sticking with her through all of her musical changes. She broke out her acoustic guitar and began playing “Dancing With Our Hands Tied”
“One of my favorite things about you guys over the last 15 years is that a lot of times, people in the music industry would tell me what you wanted, and a few times it would be things like “Oh, you can’t work with that person”, or “You can’t make a pop album because your fans are country fans. They would never understand that; they’d be really confused, and they wouldn’t stick around.” And I said to them: “No, I’m pretty sure that I know them better than you do. I’m pretty sure that they want to be able to connect with a feeling in a song. They wanna be able to relate to lyrics in a song. You guys have stuck around for a lot of musical changes, and you’ve let me play; you’ve let me evolve, and that’s something I’m so grateful for. Thank you for letting me do that. And I still write songs the exact same way. I pick up an instrument, get an idea, and so each song can kind of be broken down into acoustic even if it wasn’t like that on the album.”
Swift then played the secret song (A song that will most likely be different every night). It’s always accompanied by a speech, usually explaining her choice for picking it that night. Before performing tonight’s secret song, she explained that there is one song that her fans always request more than any other song and since it was opening night she wanted to play it. Fans totally lost it as she began to play “All Too Well” for the first time on an acoustic guitar. You can watch the performance below.
Swift then walks through the barricades in the crowd to get to the other B stage on the opposite side of the stadium. She slips on a cover up and asks the crowd “Do you like my dress?” before singing the song by the same name (“Dress”). When she sang the lines “Say my name and everything just stops” the entire stadium went dark (which is likely why Swift is not allowing lights with signs or other lights into the shows this tour). It was an amazing thrill when that happened! She also put up a special dedication to Loie Fuller during the song.
At the end of “Dress” when she sings “Only bought this dress so you could take it off” she slips it off!!!
Swift then goes into the skelton of a snake and is transported back to the main stage where she begins her epic mashup of “Bad Blood” and “Should’ve Said No” a song that has not been performed on the main stage since the Fearless Tour. Fans were shouting out all the lyrics, passionately, as they couldn’t believe this was a thing that was actually happening.
“Don’t Blame Me” was a holy experience as Swift walked along the stage and took everyone to church as she belted out and basked in the atmosphere as The Starlights sang “Lord save me, my drug is my baby I’ll be using for the rest of my life.”
It wouldn’t be a Taylor Swift concert without her showing the crowd her many musical skills, which definitely includes the piano. What the crowd wasn’t prepared for, was the speech she gave before playing her next mashup which included a song that has a special meaning to both her band and the fans, “Long Live.” She told the crowd how several years ago someone called her a snake on social media and it caught on. Then more people started calling her a snake along with other things and she went through a time where she didn’t know if she would get to do this (touring/music) anymore.
“I guess with the snakes, I wanted to send a message to you guys that if someone uses name calling to bully you on social media, or even if a lot of people jump on board with it, it doesn’t have to defeat you. It can strengthen you instead. And I think something that came out of it that was good is that I learned a really important lesson that I’ve been telling you from the stage for ten years but I haven’t been able to learn myself, which has to do with how much you value your reputation. And I think that the lesson is that you shouldn’t care so much if you feel misunderstood by a lot of people who don’t know you as long as you feel understood by the people who do know you, the people who do show up for you, and the people who see you as a human being. So thank you, thank you, thank you for taking the time to get to know me, for sticking up for me, for seeing me as a human being.”
You could feel the emotion of the crowd at the thought of not having Swift around anymore. Things got more emotional as she began singing the lyrics to “Long Live” and then she did a mashup with “New Year’s Day.”
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After her emotional time at the piano, the crowd felt even more of the pain she has endured as the screen and visuals showed the poem she wrote called “Why She Disappeared.”
When she fell, she fell apart.
Cracked her bones on the pavement she once decorated
as a child with sidewalk chalk
When she crashed, her clothes disintegrated and blew away
with the winds that took all of her fair-weather friends
When she looked around, her skin was spattered with ink
forming the words of a thousand voices
Echoes she heard even in her sleep:
“Whatever you say, it is not right.”
“Whatever you do, it is not enough.”
“Your kindness is fake.”
“Your pain is manipulative.”
When she lay there on the ground,
She dreamed of time machines and revenge
and a love that was really something,
Not just the idea of something.
When she finally rose, she rose slowly
Avoiding old haunts and sidestepping shiny pennies
Wary of phone calls and promises,
Charmers, dandies and get-love-quick-schemes
When she stood, she stood with a desolate knowingness
Waded out into the dark, wild ocean up to her neck
Bathed in her brokenness
Said a prayer of gratitude for each chink in the armor
she never knew she needed
Standing broad-shouldered next to her
was a love that was really something,
not just the idea of something.
When she turned to go home,
She heard the echoes of new words
“May your heart remain breakable
But never by the same hand twice”
And even louder:
“without your past,
you could never have arrived-
so wondrously and brutally,
By design or some violent, exquisite happenstance
…here.”
And in the death of her reputation,
She felt truly alive.
The screen then showed beautiful scenery of Utah as Swift performed on stage solo for “Getaway Car” proving that she doesn’t need anything else to put on a mesmerizing performance.
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There was a giant mansion that appeared for “Call It What You Want” and newspaper confetti fell to the ground with Taylor Swift news. There was a giant fountain and The Starlights joined her on the steps as the began singing “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” which turned into a mashup with the closing number, “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things.” There were massive fireworks as the mantion fell apart and she gave a toast to her real friends. Everyone took bows, the dancers flipped their hair in the fountain and the most amazing concert came to an end.
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What a night, a rush of emotions. If you have the chance, you won’t want to miss this tour. It’s truly life changing. See the photo gallery and full set list below!
Glendale, AZ – 5/8/18 – Setlist
Ready for It?
I Did Something Bad
Gorgeous
Style/Love Story/You Belong With Me Medley
Look What You Made Me Do ft. Tiffany Haddish
End Game (only Taylor’s part)
King of My Heart
Delicate (flies over the crowd)
Shake It Off with Camila Cabello and Charli XCX (B-Stage 1)
Dancing with Our Hands Tied (acoustic) (B-Stage 1)
All Too Well (acoustic) (B-Stage 1)
Blank Space (walks into crowd to B-Stage 2)
Dress (B-Stage 2)
Bad Blood/Should’ve Said No mashup (flies on snake to Main Stage)
Don’t Blame Me
Long Live/New Year’s Day mashup (piano)
Getaway Car
Call It What You Want
We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together/This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things mashup
Talk about a heart of gold, actual angel Taylor Swift invited 2000 kids and adults to preview her Reputation Stadium Tour that kicks off May 8 in Glendale, AZ. The special part is that all of these families are adoptive/foster families and it was only made known because of the posts that came flooding out after the show! Swift herself hasn’t mentioned the private concert, which truly speaks about her generosity and gracious heart.
Not only did those in attendance get to enjoy a concert, up close and personal for free, but they were also treated to complimentary pizza, drinks, candy, autographed photos and a photo op with Swift herself! It was a fun night that was truly memorable and so special considering how expensive it can be to take a large family out to a concert! See the posts from the evening!
Thanx 2 @taylorswift + crew for a sneak peak of a #reputationstadiumtour It’s going to be incredible! U didn’t need to visit the hospital, to give anybody free tickets that night, to feed us pizza, and to stay 3 hours later just to take pics with everyone….but you did! 💛💛 pic.twitter.com/D5v0Uk0fzZ
Thanx 2 @taylorswift + crew for a sneak peak of a #reputationstadiumtour It’s going to be incredible! U didn’t need to visit the hospital, to give anybody free tickets that night, to feed us pizza, and to stay 3 hours later just to take pics with everyone….but you did! 💛💛 pic.twitter.com/D5v0Uk0fzZ
Thanks @taylorswift13 for allowing us to be the first to see your #reputationtour ! For foster/adoptive families she gave us a private show, freedom to roam around the Cardinals stadium, bought everyone pizza, picture with us, and everyone got an autograph. Our girls loves you! pic.twitter.com/4oIgLtK4oZ
The countdown is on! With 13 days to go until the Reputation Stadium Tour, Taylor Swift has decided to share some facts about the tour! She shared a behind the scenes photo to Instagram and also uploaded a video to her story!
So what is the first tidbit she is sharing?! The fact that she will be playing about 10 different songs from her albums before Reputation on the tour!! She said she will be releasing a fact a day until tour starts! We imagine there will mostly be songs from the 1989 era, but hoping for some good classics as well!
“Love Story” has been there every tour and “You Belong With Me” usually makes a come back at some point. Now we definitely don’t think that 10 songs will be in every show since typically she plays around 15-17 songs every concert…. unless of course she is going really big and playing 20+ songs! There are 15 new songs on the new album, and usually, not every song makes the cut, so what do you think she will leave off the main set list?
Swift usually has a smaller stage where she plays some acoustic songs, so it will be interesting to see if she continues that tradition. Whatever songs don’t make it to the main set, will definitely be played at some point on tour if there is an acoustic section.
Either way, we will be there opening night so we will keep you updated on every day until then about what we learn! Watch the video below to see the announcement!
Update #2 – There will be 3 stages on tour so she can be as close to us as possible!
Update #4 – The two stages out in the audience are as big as the 1989 Tour stage! There are also panels they walk on that are screens so from the high seats, it’s going to look really amazing!
