LONDON, Aug 20 (Reuters) – Taylor Swift performed “Florida!!!” live for the first time on Tuesday at the final European show of her Erasus tour, featuring surprise guest Florence Welch.
The pop megastar also debuted the ballad “So Long, London” during the acoustic section of her Wembley Stadium show, a song that fans widely believe is about the end of her relationship with British actor Joe Alwyn.
Both songs appear on Swift's 11th studio album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” which was released earlier this year.
Welch, of British indie rock band Florence + the Machine, co-wrote “Florida!!!” and sang on the recorded track.
Swift drew fans from near and far for her final appearance at the critically acclaimed show in Europe.
The American singer-songwriter played five shows at London's Wembley Stadium last week after a show in Vienna was cancelled when authorities thwarted a planned raid. Some of Vienna's 195,000 disappointed fans rushed to buy tickets for the London show on resale sites, where they were being sold for up to 10 times their face value.
The first tour to gross more than $1 billion, Eras will feature dedicated sections from all 11 of Swift's studio albums, and her performances and show production have been praised by critics.
Fans arrived at Wembley wearing sequins, cowboy hats and friendship bracelets on their arms in preparation to swap them with other Swifties, and underwent rigorous security checks.
British police said there was no indication that the events in Vienna would affect the Wembley performance, but there was a significant security presence at the stadium.
“Taggating”, the practice of gathering outside Swift concerts without tickets – as thousands did in Munich last month – has been banned as authorities try to reduce risks outside the venues that are harder to control.
Marie Wright, 48, from Limerick, Ireland, bought tickets on a resale website on Monday night and flew to London on Tuesday with her daughter's best friend, Aife McCarthy, 15. Wright's daughter had already seen the show in Dublin.
“She was leaving Europe so she had to come on her last night,” McCarthy said.
“Her songs have real meaning and poetry to them,” Wright added.
The tour will return to the US in October before concluding in Vancouver, Canada in December.
Sign up here.
Reporting by Paul Sandle; editing by Sharon Singleton and Lincoln Feast
Our standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Opens in new tab
Purchasing License Rights
Source link
