It’s been almost a month since Taylor Swift finally took ownership of the master recordings of her first six albums, and she’s now given her first live performance since - in her words - her “greatest dream” came true.
This came not at a scheduled show, but as a surprise in her spiritual home of Nashville, where she moved in 2004 in a bid to break into the country music scene.
She took to the stage at the Tight Ends & Friends concert at the city’s Brooklyn Bowl, which is reported to have been organised by Swift’s partner Travis Kelce as part of his summer training camp at nearby Tight End University.
Taking to the stage, Swift strapped on an acoustic guitar and addressed the ecstatic crowd. “We were thinking… how loud could this place get?”, she asked, before leading the band in an impromptu performance of her hit single Shake It Off, from her 2014 album, 1989.
@arctic_labs ♬ alkuperäinen ääni - Jen
This, of course, is one the albums that Swift has just taken ownership of, having previously re-recorded it as part of her ‘Taylor’s Version’ project in a bid to take control of her legacy.
Thanks to her deal with Shamrock Capital, though - the previous owner of her masters - she now owns the original version, too, along with her initial recordings of albums Fearless, Red, Speak Now, Reputation and her eponymous debut.
“All I’ve ever wanted was the opportunity to work hard enough to be able to one day purchase my music outright with no strings attached, no partnership, with full autonomy,” she wrote in a letter to fans. She also confirmed that "all of the music I've ever made now belongs to me.”
Whether Swift’s surprise performance is a prelude to some other kind of announcement remains to be seen. The star is known to tease her next steps in cryptic ways but, after multiple album releases over the past few years and having just come off the back of her mammoth Eras Tour, we suspect that it might just have been a one-off.
