Shimmering fans of Taylor Swift filled US Bank Stadium with sequins on Friday for a concert that marked not only a huge cultural moment, but also an intimate, shared experience — between mothers and daughters, longtime best friends and, after, the bracelets exchanged , new friends.
They were there at the Eras Tour concert and caused excitement for weeks. After an infamous Ticketmaster debacle that disappointed those who couldn’t get in, Swift sold out two shows at the 60,000-seat stadium. Governor Tim Walz declared the concert dates for Friday and Saturday to be official “Taylor Swift Days”, after which Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey unofficially renamed the city “Swiftieapolis”.
After battling the ticketmaster and traffic, the concert-goers grinned as they finally entered the stadium, taking selfies and singing songs. They received a different kind of bracelet – a glowing bracelet. As a clock on the stage counted down, the crowd screamed louder and then louder.
Finally, Swift appeared on a stage bathed in pink light.
“Minneapolis, Minnesota, you’re making me feel amazing,” she greeted the crowd.
After a few songs, a guitar around her neck, she asked, “Is there anyone here who has made a great effort to be with us tonight?” The crowd cheered loudly. “That’s exactly what I thought you would say.”
“I just feel like I know the answer to that question too,” she continued. “Is there anyone who has put a lot of thought into what they’re going to wear tonight?”
The crowd cheered even louder.
“I say this… it looks very cute. You did a great job.”
Her notoriously religious and detail-oriented fans wore elaborate, often tailored outfits that referenced not only Swift’s “epochs,” but also specific lyrics, quotes, and inside jokes.
Abigail Greenheck and her friend and former college roommate Chelsie Flatness surprised their 7-year-old daughters with tickets and matching red sequined jackets. The pandemic has brought Greenheck and her daughter Sidney “together in the swiftie nation,” she said. Together they devoured the albums, the documentaries.
“Now it’s a shared love between us.”
“Fans can relate to Swift’s different genres and eras because they too go through stages in their own lives,” Greenheck said, while her cheeks shone with silver glitter. “There’s a commonality that I think is generational.”
Outside in the square, two women in their 20s with bright red lipstick and heart-shaped sunglasses played “All Too Well” on their harps.
“We are the unlucky ones,” said Hannah Flowers, 27, while her friend and harpist Anna Maxwell, 29, laughed. Unable to find tickets they could afford, the two decided to perform for the Swifties.
One girl apologized for not having a tip and instead offered a bracelet with the letters “August,” a song from “Folklore,” and “Bejeweled” from “Midnights.” Her tip basket contained dollar bills and a few temporary butterfly tattoos.
A mother standing in line at the stadium thanked the couple for lowering her blood pressure.
“We’re happy to help,” Flowers said.
Fans came from the suburbs, from Iowa, from Manitoba. Susie Imhof and her mother Annie flew in from Denver to celebrate her 18th birthday. Friday’s show would be her fourth time seeing Swift on this tour.
“We can’t stop,” said Annie Imhof. “We’re hooked now.”
Dozens of fans started their day at the Mall of America, which offered free bracelet-making and face painting in the North Atrium and $13 rides on yellow school buses to downtown Minneapolis.
Anaya Sierra threaded green beads onto a rubber band and spelled out “Our Song.”
The 27-year-old has loved Swift since 2008, when she first heard the tune on the radio, she beamed. She and her sister Marcella, 20, drove with their mother, Raquel Ponce, from Mason City, Iowa, on Thursday to see Swift for the first time.
The sisters love how Swift stays true to herself, fights for her fans and appreciates her mother. In them, Ponce sees himself as a young, Prince-loving music fan. “To me, she’s like Prince,” she said of Swift. She writes her own songs, does her own thing, and “is on her own level.”
“I’m so happy to see them so excited,” she said of her daughters, snapping photos of them on her phone.
Just as Anaya Sierra was lacing her bracelet, the DJ played “Our Song.” The sisters shrieked, then sang along and swayed their hips.
On the bus to the stadium, fans exchanged friendship bracelets, a trend based on a song’s lyrics in “You’re on Your Own, Kid” — “So make the friendship bracelets / Take the moment and taste it.” Emma Pufahl, 23, made smaller friendship rings after discovering them on TikTok. While someone yelled “Cruel Summer” on their phone, a few people discussed possible “surprise songs.”
Haley Willson, 21, predicted “Exile,” a song starring Bon Iver, aka Justin Vernon, who lives in nearby Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
“If Bon Iver came out, I would break down,” she said with a dramatic sigh.
The day tickets went on sale, Willson updated Ticketmaster from 8am to 6pm. She was about to give up when four tickets appeared. “I was sobbing hysterically,” she said. Willson, from St. Cloud, was a fan “by birth,” she said. Sitting next to her, her mother Katy Dols, 42, declared: “I’m the original Swiftie.”
Her wrists were covered with colorful bracelets made by the couple the night before. The mother-daughter couple have seen many concerts together, Dols said, but “this one is very special.”
Her voice trailed off and tears formed. “She’s my best friend, my partner in crime.”