Carpenter was forced to cancel her opening set at the ‘Eras Tour’ show in Sydney due to bad weather
Sabrina Carpenter and Taylor Swift perform in Sydney as part of the ‘Eras Tour’. CREDIT: Don Arnold/TAS24/Getty
Taylor Swift brought out Sabrina Carpenter to perform a mash-up of ‘White Horse’ and ‘Coney Island’ during her show in Sydney last night (February 23) – watch below.
The ‘Midnights’ pop star was playing the first of four consecutive dates at the city’s Accor Stadium as part of the Australian leg of her ongoing ‘Eras Tour’.
Carpenter is supporting Swift on the current run, but was forced to cancel her set yesterday due to a delay caused by bad weather. To make up for it, Swift invited her onstage for the “surprise songs” segment of the gig.
The pair duetted on a stripped-back piano version of ‘White Horse’, the original of which appears on Swift’s second album ‘Fearless’ (2008) and the 2021 ‘(Taylor’s Version)’ re-record.
Ahead of the live collaboration, Carpenter recalled performing the song when she was nine years old. “If anyone looks up this cover, I’m gonna be really upset. But I know they are,” she told the audience.
The two artists also incorporated elements of ‘Coney Island’ from Swift’s 2020 album ‘Evermore’. Check out fan-shot footage of the moment here:
Swift recently scrapped her “no repeats” approach to the “surprise songs” section of the ‘Eras Tour’ concerts.
“I’ve been thinking, I want to be as creative as possible with the acoustic set moving forward,” she told the crowd at one of her shows in Melbourne last week.
“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.”
The singer will bring the ‘Eras Tour’ to the UK and Ireland this summer, with support on that leg coming from Paramore. She’ll play eight shows at Wembley Stadium in London as part of the run.
Swift is set to release her 11th studio album, ‘The Tortured Poets Department’, on April 19 (see the full tracklist here). “It was really a lifeline for me,” she said of writing the upcoming record. “Just the things I was going through and the things I was writing about.
“It kind of reminded me of why songwriting is something that actually gets me through my life, and I never had an album where I needed songwriting more than I needed it on ‘Tortured Poets’.”
In other news, Taylor Swift is nominated for International Artist Of The Year at the BRIT Awards 2024. This year’s ceremony will take place at The O2 in London next Saturday (March 2).