Thousands of swifties They endure the 30 degrees that fall completely around the Bernabéu where tonight Taylor Swift offers the first of her two concerts in Madrid. No matter the heat, it’s her time: today there’s not enough glitter, not a paillette, not a brilliant one. Here we talk about love, terrible breakups, friendship. They have come to do what they are not always allowed to do: girl things, which in the end are girl things. swifties. And they all do it together. One thousandth of the army of followers that has made a 34-year-old girl from Pennsylvania currently occupy the world pop throne.
The wait inside the Bernabéu is intense. The roof of the stadium is closed and as the hours go by and it fills up, the greenhouse effect is felt. In the first rows the fan is an essential requirement. They maintain an extraordinary decorum, the shine that glitter gives them. Among them, one uniform begins to stand out: the red jersey of the American football team, Kansas City Chiefs, of Travis Kelce, Taylor Swift’s partner.
If you’re swiftie you know the codes. After about 45 minutes of Paramore, the opening acts, they refill their glass of water thanks to the boys who dispense it in their backpacks (bottles on the track are prohibited, they accumulated at the entrances to the stadium), while the supers arrive vip like Aitana, actress Blake Lively, a friend of the artist, and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, with their daughters, the band Heim and singer Aitana with her father. Then the song plays Applause. lNerves are triggered when the clock counting down an eternal two and a half minutes appears on the giant screen on stage.
Then, a part of the screen rises, the cry is already beginning to be unanimous. The dancers appear carrying a kind of enormous petals, they gather on the central platform and when they unfold, she appears. By then you stop listening, the noise is deafening. Taylor Swift sings Miss Americana and Cruel Summer. It says: “Hello, nice to meet you,” in Spanish.
The review of Swift’s eras begins, in three and a half hours she will review her 11 albums. She hasn’t set foot in Spain for 13 years. “You make me feel excellent,” the artist concludes while she kisses her biceps. “Tonight I will be your host.” And she claims that 65,000 people roar before her.
Hours before, in line, one of those fans, María, said that she was not going through her best moment. But this Wednesday, next to Alba and Inés, two girls who are accompanied by her father, she explained that he is happy. “I got a bracelet Champagne Problems, my favorite Taylor song,” she says, showing her wrist where she accumulates a dozen of these friendship bracelets (the official name) made with beads. This tradition began on this tour, it was born from a verse of You’re On Your Own, Kidsong from the singer’s penultimate album, Midnights. “We make them with the names of her songs, her albums or her phrases that she says,” the sisters explain.
María dresses from the album lover: “I don’t know if it’s the one that represents me the most right now, I’m more in the mood of The Tortured Poets Department”. In language not swiftie: fans dress in looks that Taylor Swift wore in each of her albums. And each album represents a vital moment of the singer, a musical style and now they are also called eras, hence the name of the tour, The Eras Tour. The singer offers a concert of more than three hours where she reviews some of the 11 albums she has published.
“It helps to feel represented with your lyrics and to understand your feelings, to read them in a song,” she says. swiftie. “It helped us a lot during confinement,” explain the brothers Lucía and Alejandro Garrido, dressed from the album. Reputation. “When it comes to love, I’m a little bad and Taylor accompanies me a lot,” adds JJ Redondo, with a black jacket that has been customized writing all the names of Swift’s albums on her back in rhinestones. “I wasn’t a big fan until a year ago, when I started going out with him,” Jordi Casamayor continues, pointing to his boyfriend, sitting on the sidewalk. He wears a white dress, very dramatic, inspired by Folklore; Her boyfriend accompanies him in a black lace shirt.
They have reached Madrid swifties from all over Spain, Europe and the United States. Laine and Brooklyn, two friends from Oklahoma, explain the math: “The trip, accommodation, tickets and merchandising than an entry into our country.” There they could reach 2,000 euros. Thiana, from California, leaves the official store (“Taylor Swift up, Real Madrid down,” an employee clarifies) with two boxes vip, a sweatshirt and the tour bracelet: “I’ve spent more than 100 euros and it’s still worth it.”
Esther Moya has stood in line with a lectern, a canvas, paints and her boyfriend, who today is carrying an umbrella. “I’m going to spend the six hours of waiting painting a portrait of Taylor that my followers chose in my Instagram account”, says. It’s the third time he’s done something similar. His goal is to reach the singer. He already achieved it with Bad Gyal. “Only if they guarantee that he gets to his dressing room would I give up my ticket,” she says. Lydia, 18 years old, about to take the EVAU (which is why she has only been able to make a dozen friendship bracelets, she laments) makes an almost lapidary sentence: “My ticket costs 590 euros, I have had to cry too much to my parents, only if they threatened me with death would I give it.”
For all of these people, Taylor Swift has been key at different times in their lives, or rather, the soundtrack that has accompanied them for decades. It helps them to self-reference and vindicate themselves. Without irony or cynicism. They find in their endless lyrics (only the choruses can have 19 words) an answer to what they experience every day. Not to memorize more than three hours of concert with songs that can last up to 10 minutes. Most likely they will never meet Swift, but tonight her friend (although the relationship is not two-way) is going to sing to them, this time in concert, about her life, her girl things.
All the culture that goes with you awaits you here.
Subscribe
Babelia
The literary news analyzed by the best critics in our weekly newsletter
RECEIVE IT
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_
#Taylor #Swift #fans #happy #nice #meet