“I want to be as creative as possible with the acoustic set moving forward”
Taylor Swift has issued a “public service announcement” about how she plans to approach the surprise songs portion of the ‘Eras’ tour going forward.
When the pop star kicked off the North American leg of her huge ‘Eras’ tour in March last year, she revealed plans to perform a different surprise song in the acoustic portion of the set each night, with no repeats.
Taylor Swift performs at Melbourne Cricket Ground on February 16, 2024 in Melbourne, Australia (CREDIT: Graham Denholm/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management)
“The plan, the goal, would be to play different songs every single night and never repeat one. Right?” she said (per Billboard). “So that when you heard one on this tour, you would know it’s the only time that I was going to play it in the acoustic set, unless – caveat – unless I mess it up so badly,” she laughed, “that I have to do it over again in some other city. Send your best wishes towards me that I don’t do that.”
However, Swift has now clarified a new amendment to her rule, which will allow her to approach things in a more “creative” way.
During her show in Melbourne last night (February 18) she told the crowd that she had a “public service announcement”, sharing: “I’ve been thinking, I want to be as creative as possible with the acoustic set moving forward. I don’t wanna limit anything and I don’t wanna just say, ‘Oh, if I’ve played a song before I can’t play it again.’ So from now on, I don’t wanna take any paint colours out of the paint box of colours.
“I want to be able to play songs more than once if I feel like it, and I wanna be able to make changes to songs.”
Swift’s Australian fans at Melbourne Cricket Ground were treated to the first taste of what the new approach might look like, performing a mashup of her songs ‘Getaway Car’, ‘August’ and ‘The Other Side of the Door’.
The singer amended her rule about never repeating surprise songs once before, giving herself permission to repeat surprise songs from her 2022 album ‘Midnights’. At the end of 2023, she also confirmed that would reset the surprise songs selection in 2024.
Earlier this month, Swift announced her next album, ‘The Tortured Poets Department’.