It looks like Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour is getting a brand new era, straight from The Tortured Poets Department.
Since the announcement of her new 11th studio album (which dropped April 19), fans have been anxiously waiting to see if her worldwide, career-spanning tour would get a shakeup to accommodate the new music. While Swift is remaining mum, and a rep for the singer didn’t respond to an EW request for comment, a new YouTube Short posted to Swift’s account seems to provide all the clarity Swifties needed that a change is imminent.
In the video, which is part of Swift’s #ForAFortnightChallenge tied to the album’s first single, “Fortnight,” the 14-time Grammy winner can be seen rehearsing for tour with her backup dancers. While some shots are obviously from the Folklore, Lover, and other existing “eras” of the show, several blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments have never been seen before.
In one, Swift, clad in workout gear, appears to be wearing the same boots seen in her “Fortnight” video. She’s holding on to a banister that looks like it has the Tortured Poets Department emblem on it — the “P” and the “D” can just be made out.
Although the video is in grayscale, and therefore exact colors are impossible to identify for sure, several shots feature what looks like a new white-ish mic, which has never been seen before. The new era’s color, of course, is also an off-white hue.
Perhaps the most interesting moment of the new clip, though, is one that features what looks like new choreography and costumes. Swift’s backup dancers can be seen in top hats and dancing with canes, while she sings in the front middle of the group — choreography and props which have so far not been featured in the concert.
This is all speculative until the tour resumes in Paris, France, on May 9, of course, but if Swift is adding a whole new era, it would mark the first major change to the setlist since Swift began performing it last March.
Throughout the tour, she’s made little swaps here or there: She added performances with some of the artists who opened for her like HAIM or Phoebe Bridgers, and she added “Long Live” to the Speak Now section when that re-recorded album released during tour. She also swapped out “Invisible String” for the “The 1” in the Folklore section after news of her split with Joe Alwyn broke.
But, nothing has majorly been added or subtracted from the show, which is already a whopping three-and-a-half hours long. Now, if anyone could pull off adding more runtime to Eras, it’s the “Mastermind” herself, but it’s more likely that some songs will be getting cut to make room for new material. Fans have theorized that the tracks that didn’t make it into the VOD rental of the Eras Tour concert film — “The Archer,” “Wildest Dreams,” “Cardigan,” and “Long Live” — could be first on the chopping block, but we’ll just have to wait and see what Ms. Swift has up her cryptic and Machiavellian sleeve.
