Submitted photo Columbus resident Brittany Dyer is shown before the recent Taylor Swift Eras Tour concert at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee.
They apparently live up to their name at a time like this, these Swifties.
Especially on Thursday when they heard news of the second coming of sorts of pop icon Taylor Swift’s U.S. leg of her record-breaking Eras Tour that began in March. People such as Columbus resident Eric Heyob swiftly scrambled online to register for tickets for one of three Indianapolis shows slated Nov. 1-3 2024 at Lucas Oil Stadium.
How many other artists ever have to think 15 months ahead?
Heyob registered primarily for his 18-year-old niece, who has seen her in concert already.
“She’s been a Swiftie since a very young age,” he said.
Heyob himself is an admirer, too. He met Swift, then a still-rising teen singer in 2007, while Heyob was working at a radio station promoting her concert in Shreveport, Louisiana.
“She was an absolute doll,” he said.
Columbus native and Indianapolis resident Amberly Peterson has seen Swift in concert 11 times, including the Eras Tour in Nashville, Tennessee, May 6 and in Cincinnati July 1 — but that’s not enough for her.
Tour shows have stretched three hours, covering 10 albums over 17 years as the artist has moved from country to folk to pop-rock and more.
“Not only has she maintained her Original Gangster Swiftie fan base, she’s been able to connect with a brand new generation of fans,” Peterson said. “She is the greatest songwriter ever. Her talent is undeniable, but she’s also an incredibly savvy businesswoman who connects deeply with her audience.”
Amid her passion, Peterson can joke, too, about that connection.
“Taylor Swift for President 2024!” she said.
Such humorous enthusiasm is fairly commonplace among her music buyers/downloaders and concert attendees — all in spite of the jumping-through-hoops process of hoping to land tickets. For example, Karmen Riley is excited that daughter Danniella Riley wants to see Swift again. But mom is slightly concerned about the journey toward tickets.
“As a parent, I’m already feeling the PTSD of our prior Ticketmaster experience,” she cracked about the 2018 Reputation tour that stopped at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
But never the matter. Her 15-year-old daughter, who remembers loving Swift’s music as a preschooler, said the trouble was more than worth it.
“Oh yes,” said the student who has sung the artist’s tunes with her classmates in North show choir performances. “Definitely, yes. I just started crying when I first saw her come out on stage (in 2018).”
Local resident Regan Littrell remembers being online for about 13 hours over two days with Ticketmaster for the Eras Tour Cincinnati concert she attended. But her love for Swift way beyond just her music was unhindered.
“I especially like the fact that she’s a feminist,” Littrell said. “And I like the fact that she’s a philanthropist.”
Littrell added that Swift always has made sizable donations to food banks and other causes in every city of her tours. And she described a concert atmosphere not only marked by exuberance, but love.
Columbus resident Brittany Dyer can relate. She plans to go to the concert next year, which would make her fifth Swift concert.
But Dyer saw a unity and a bonding so strong even among non-ticket-holding tailgaters — known affectionately as Taygaters — in Cincinnati outside Paycor Stadium and Swift’s concert there recently that she and others even gave Swiftie friendship bracelets to male police personnel — and officers gladly wore them in the parking lot.
“That was almost even more fun than an actual concert,” said Dyer, who was at the recent Nashville, Tennessee concert. “The bars were set up outside the stadium and embraced all of it (the tailgating).”
Dyer speaks emotionally of Swift’s lyrics comforting and strengthening her through nearly every phase of her life the past 15 years. An early pregnancy. Toxic relationships.
Even the struggling of feeling like an outsider when the song “The Outside” gave her perspective.
“Even when her songs are sad,” Dyer said, “she always shows that there’s hope emerging on the other side.”
And, for some locals, there’s more than hope of seeing Swift before next year. Christina Franco will see her Monday — in concert at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium just before the tour heads to Mexico.
