Taylor Swift kicked off the final U.S. leg of her Eras Tour on Friday night in Indianapolis with a record-setting crowd and plenty of sequins and glitter.
While Indy might have been skipped in the first leg of the 19-month-old tour, Swift emphasized Friday night that she made the right choice to finish the U.S. portion here.
“We decided we have got to end this tour in front of the most dedicated, passionate, beautiful, enthusiastic, excitable crowd,” Swift said early in her setlist. “So we decided that the very last U.S. city of the Eras Tour would be right here in Indianapolis, Indiana. And I can already tell we made the best decision possible.”
Taylor Swift performs Friday, Nov. 1, 2024, during night one of three at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. Swift’s Indianapolis performances mark her last Eras Tour stop in the United States.© Grace Smith/IndyStar
Here’s what else happened at Indy N1.
1 / 40
©Grace Smith/IndyStar
The concert was record-setting
Lucas Oil Stadium was filled with 69,000 fans Friday, breaking the stadium’s concert attendance record, Swift said.
“You know, I was told some news before we took to the stage tonight,” said before singing the 10-minute version of “All Too Well.” “I was told that tonight you went ahead and broke the all-time attendance record for a concert in this stadium.”
The crowd was noticeable, both in the long bathroom and merchandise lines before the concert and in the stand-still traffic that lingered for hours after the concert.
Post Malone wasn’t there, but Caitlin Clark was
No, that wasn’t Post Malone who came up from the ground during “Fortnight,” contrary to the wishes of some screaming fans who initially mistook one of Swift’s dancers for Malone. The confusion has been a common occurrence ever since “The Tortured Poets Department” joined the setlist.
And no, neither Sabrina Carpenter nor Florence Welch joined Swift like they have on previous nights of the tour. Still, opening act Gracie Abrams was welcomed by the crowd.
And there was another star in attendance at Lucas Oil: Caitlin Clark. The Indiana Fever’s biggest name was seen on the suite level talking to fans, and she posted to her Instagram stories twice.
“I’m fired up!!!!!!!!” Clark wrote on a photo of Abrams on Instagram. Later she posted a picture of Swift singing “Enchanted,” her favorite Swift song.
While Swift didn’t invite any surprise guests on stage, she did still play surprise songs. She performed a mashup of “The Albatross” from “The Tortured Poets Department” and “Holy Ground” from “Red (Taylor’s Version)” on the guitar, before moving to the piano for a mashup of “Cold As You” and “Exile” on the piano.
1 / 11
©Grace Smith/IndyStar
Earlier rain show causes technical difficulties
We didn’t have a rain show, of course, with Lucas Oil’s roof closed, but we did feel the effects of previous rain shows on Friday night. During the middle of “Lavender Haze,” Swift had to ask for a replacement part mid-song as she fiddled with her earpiece and mic pack. She kept singing as someone came on stage to help her.
Afterward, the lights went dark before she came back on stage for “Mastermind.”
“I play a lot of rain shows, and we never quite know when our equipment’s going to break,” Swift said to the crowd. “Could be that night, could be a few shows later.”
Indy gets a different show than first U.S. leg
For many Hoosiers who thought the Eras Tour would never come to Indianapolis, driving to Chicago or Cincinnati was the next best option back in 2023. More than a year later, the show was almost an entirely different experience Friday night.
Her set list now includes songs from her newest album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” plus plenty of new outfits. Perhaps the biggest difference, though, was that the crowd seemed to all know what to expect. With the release of “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” movie and more than 100 shows already in the books, far more people have already seen Swift’s concert than they had in the first U.S. leg.
Everyone knew when she was going to sing “The Man” or that Swift would “dive” into the stage floor. That didn’t detract from the energy as tens of thousands of Swifties blurted out nearly every word to the expansive set list, and many stuck around afterward to pick up individual confetti pieces off the floor.
