At 7:38 Lollie and I left our seats, headed for the restroom. In the long line I got uneasy. My mind blanked in the pre-show frenzy: Does she come on at 8 or 8:30? I fretted and made mental bargains: if we’re not in the actual restroom at 7:47 we are abandoning the line.
The coed in front of us said as long as the countdown wasn’t on we were good, and my worry worsened. The whole line suddenly sobered. Morgan called, then text a warning. Lollie: “Mom, I’m running.” She was gone girl, bolting up steep stairs at break-neck speed.
We made it, of course. The countdown began, ending five months of planning and a lifetime of dreaming. The girls’ screams, laughs and tears joined thousands of bejeweled, booted and boa-clad Swifties. The stadium buzzed with adrenaline; their hands shook.
When the star herself finally fell from the heavens, Lollie cried and she was still crying 36 minutes later.
During an album transition and one of the dizzying costume changes, I sat down for a breather and Fee whisper-screamed in my ear: “At the first song I couldn’t even breathe because I was crying so much.”
In the days leading up to this epic event, Lollie and Mary Fin’s first out-sized concert, we reminisced on our own first concerts (not counting Sikeston’s rodeo shows, of course!). Wesley and I took Morgan to two of her firsts: Three 6 Mafia at Memphis in May’s Music Fest followed by The Stones a couple of months later in the FedEx Forum. Twenty years later when the Eras tour was announced it was kismet that she called me with a directive: we have to make this happen, and against all odds, we did.
Hours after we left the stadium we still weren’t back in America or even Earth, and days later, a dear one asked for a defining moment from the show. All of it. Every single bit of it, but a few stand out.
One moment came between Jackson, Tennessee and Nashville when I heard “All Too Well 10-minute version)” for the first time and my fanship changed; then, we listened to “Last Great American Dynasty.” I asked to listen to “All Too Well” two or three more times. As we dove into deeper tracks, I realized Taylor Swift is a lyricist. Maybe I was becoming a certified Swiftie in that moment, but as for the show …
Another dear friend reminded me that in 2007 we saw Taylor Swift from the third row at a George Strait concert, although her career was so green then I’d forgotten it was her. I have seen the Stones, Elton, BB and more blues acts than I can count. I have seen Whitney at the top. Garth Brooks on his way up. Dylan many times in the twilight. Never have I seen a genre-defying pop artist at her apex.
The show was circus. It was camp and it was broadway. It was intimate and a Super Bowl halftime. It was fast and upbeat. It was devilish and revenge. It was slow and melancholy. It was moody and then it was innocent and childlike sweet.
The wristband lights forming hearts, rainbows and Roman numerals. The set with its little treehouse and ladders to clouds. Dancers in spinning, lighted boxes. Fire and fireworks. A magical dive beneath the stage.
And of course the Speak Now album announcement Lollie couldn’t stop talking about the following day. Indeed it was all the moments.
Definitively, it was the generosity of her fans. They positively catered to one another. Outside the stadium pre-show, we took two college girls’ photos and they gave my girls friendship bracelets. The sweet girl in a cotton candy dress sitting behind us offered up her ear plugs for Fee. Another mom hooked me up with a secret, no-line bathroom. A young girl tapped me on the shoulder and gave Fee a child-size Eras t-shirt she’d found. I wished all of America were Taylor fans. Swift for president?
It was song after song and album after album. Easter eggs and her famous bridges and my girls knowing every word to every song. It was the tears in their eyes.
It was months of outfit-scheming and hours of hotel-room primping. It was lipstick and fun jewelry. And glitter — all the glitter plus sequins and tulle and feathers.
It was laughing to breathlessness in the car before and after the show. It was rain ponchos and popcorn and nonstop fun. It was a week later watching my video of the moment they saw her.
It was two sisters with two sisters for a few hours of heaven and magic and stars and hopes and wishes with Taylor enchanting us in the background. It was a daydream dressed as a concert.
Laura Hough Smith is raising two wild girls, two cats and a German Shepherd with her husband, Wesley, in the Mississippi Delta. She is a former English teacher and journalist who doesn’t always follow grammar rules. She writes about grief and love.
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