It doesn’t feel like an exaggeration to say that Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour was unlike anything else in pop culture. The globe-trotting, career-spanning concert not only changed the way we engage with live music, but was a major cornerstone of many people’s lives (myself included) across 2023 and 2024.
In addition to attending the tour in person twice, I spent countless hours of those two years glued to TikTok livestreams or social media updates involving the show. Even then, there’s still a laundry list of unknowns or questions I’ve had around how it was brought to life… and it looks like Swift’s upcoming behind-the-scenes docuseries, The End of an Era, will answer those beyond my wildest dreams.
On Tuesday, Swift released the full official trailer for The End of an Era, ahead of its six episodes debuting on Disney+ next month. The series is essentially being billed as the final chapter of the “Eras Tour era”, alongside a second concert film documenting the closing night of the tour in Vancouver in December of 2024, titled Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour: The Final Show.
Just based on this trailer, The End of an Era is already chronicling a lot: the technical logistics of the show’s massive stage, the view inside of the fake cleaning cart Swift uses to enter each show, and some sweet behind-the-scenes moments with Swift’s now-fiance Travis Kelce. But one small moment is already showcasing a part of the show that I’ve always been curious about… in a way that, personally, makes me emotional.
Hold on to the memories…
The end tag of the trailer is behind-the-scenes footage of Swift (clad in Kansas City Chiefs gear, of course) sitting in front of a piano. She isn’t shown playing the instrument — rather, she’s talking through the logistics of one of her many mashups for the acoustic “surprise song” set that occurred towards the end of every show. But this isn’t just any mashup: it’s a combination of Speak Now‘s “Long Live”, reputation‘s “New Year’s Day”, and The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology‘s “The Manuscript.” It’s the very last piano mashup that she ever played on the tour (which means that it will, therefore, be immortalized next month in the The Final Show movie). It’s also one that I, along with a tens of thousands of other fans, had the honor of hearing in person during that Vancouver show.
Attending that closing night show remains one of the most surreal experiences of my life, not just because I traversed the continent to get to it, and not just because the setlist had changed so significantly since I first went to the U.S. leg of the show in the summer of 2023. It was surreal because of the weight of it: the closing of a chapter for so many of our lives, the unspoken acknowledgement that this show might be the last time in a while that certain songs or eras are professionally played live, and the nebulousness of what the future could hold. (No one could imagine, at the time, that Swift would get back her masters, release another entirely-new album, and get engaged in less than a year.)
And yet, there was a sense of weightlessness being in the room for that show. The second I stepped into the vicinity of the arena in my handmade costume and started trading friendship bracelets and hearing the pre-show playlist, it felt just as exciting and communal as any other night of the tour had been. That was one of the many brilliant and beautiful things about the Eras Tour… and it made saying goodbye a little bit easier.
That “Long Live”, “New Year’s Day”, and “The Manuscript” piano mashup encapsulated that flurry of feelings in such a unique way — which shouldn’t have been shocking, because Swift has always had a knack for giving the audience the surprise songs that they didn’t know they desperately needed. But it was still such a beautiful journey, both through her discography and through the emotions of the night, that combined those three songs so effortlessly… and now, I love that we’re able to see the actual technical effort that Swift put into the mashup.
Swift’s ramblings about the construction of the mashup might sound a little baffling out of context — even her mom, Andrea, can only react with “That’s complicated.” — but they’re such a fascinating snapshot of how her brain works, and of the amount of work she put into every night of the tour. Honestly, I would pay way too much money to hear her explain every mashup from the tour in that level of detail, so the fact that we’re starting with one that I personally experienced live is even sweeter. In just a few seconds, it made me even more excited to cry my way through The End of an Era.
(featured image: TAS24/Getty Images)
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