AFTER more than a year of anticipation Scottish Swifties were finally treated to a night they most certainly will never forget as Taylor Swift’s UK leg of the Eras Tour kicked off at Murrayfield.
The pop star sensation Swift played her first of three nights in Edinburgh on Friday, June 8 as she surprised fans with how the Scottish Highlands helped inspire her music.
Fans were treated to a whirlwind tour of her discography as she played songs from 10 of her 11 albums and the American singer was just as captivated with the Scottish audience as they were with her.
“My one regret is that I really should have come to play in Scotland more,” Swift said at the beginning of what was only her second-ever gig in the country.
“You’ve made us feel so welcome. The volume of the singing, the dancing… You are performing on such a level.
“I can’t stop looking at the crowd. I’m captivated.”
The chart-topping pop star put on a slick well-rehearsed show as glided across the stage with the backing of multiple dancers as she belted out hit after hit as she took her fans through each “Era” of her career.
There were even small nods to Scotland as during We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, she handed the mic to a backing dancer who answered with a cheeky “nae chance”.
But it was roughly halfway when Swift introduced her song Betty that she revealed the Scottish Highlands were part of the inspiration behind her albums Folklore and Evermore.
She said: “There was so much TV, so much white wine, covered in cat hair.”
“That was my reality.
“So I thought, ‘I’m going to create an imaginary world and escape into it’. This foresty, mossy, beautiful, natural world which I now realise is probably just based on videos I’ve seen online of Scotland.”
It goes without saying her revelation about her award-winning albums being inspired by the Scottish landscape elicited the loudest cheer of the night from the crowd.
Swift still has two more evenings to play in the capital, as she plays Saturday, June 9, and Sunday, June 10 as tens of thousands of fans will pile into Murrayfield to see the global superstar perform.
She travels down to Liverpool next to continue her sold-out UK tour.
