Over the years, it has become a running joke among Swift fans that they always try to guess what her next move will be, and they usually guess wrong. But near the end of the 3½-hour concert on Wednesday, Swift started her acoustic set by raving about how enthusiastic the crowds have been on her sold-out, record-breaking stadium tour over the past five months — and how they supported her when she decided to rerecord her first six albums so she could own all of her music. It was clear she was gearing up for something.
“And so now here we are on the last night of the U.S. leg of the Eras Tour, in the eighth month of the year on the ninth day of the month,” Swift started to say, and was immediately drowned out by 30 seconds of deafening screams and cheers among the 70,000-plus in attendance at SoFi Stadium.
“You might have noticed there are some new outfits in the show,” she said to further screams, because she had indeed debuted multiple new blue costumes during the night; and Swift fans know that blue is the color strongly associated with the “1989” album. “There’s something that I’ve been planning for a really, really, really … embarrassingly long time. And I think instead of just telling you about it, I think I’ll just sort of show you.”
The enormous screen behind Swift lit up with the new “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” cover, as well as an Oct. 27 release date, exactly nine years after its original release in 2014.
Surprise!! 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is on its way to you 🔜! The 1989 album changed my life in countless ways, and it fills me with such excitement to announce that my version of it will be out October 27th. To be perfectly honest, this is my most FAVORITE re-record I’ve ever done… pic.twitter.com/JFYOWhBxhj
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) August 10, 2023
The crowd continued to lose its mind, and Swift beamed from the stage as she started to play an acoustic guitar version of “New Romantics,” which was originally on the deluxe edition of the album and wound up as a single and longtime fan favorite.
In a message on social media Wednesday night, Swift wrote that the album “changed my life in countless ways” — probably referring to the fact that it was designated her first “official” pop album after starting her career in country music, and that massive hit singles such as “Shake It Off,” “Blank Space” and “Style” cemented her status as a global pop star. Swift also confirmed the project will include five songs “from the vault” that were cut from the album at the time, adding this has been her favorite rerecord because the vault tracks “are so insane. I can’t believe they were ever left behind.”
This will be Swift’s fourth rerecorded album in her quest to own her masters after a dispute with her former Nashville record label. In July, she released “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” and earned 716,000 in equivalent album units the first week, surpassing the sales of previous rerecords “Fearless” and “Red.”
The “1989” announcement was the big surprise of the Los Angeles concert, which was Swift’s sixth show in seven days at SoFi Stadium, and her last scheduled concert in the United States until fall 2024. Otherwise, the night went like clockwork as Swift ran through her 45-song set list, with the added bonus of even more celebrities than usual in attendance, including Adam Sandler, Emma Stone and Karlie Kloss.
Even though the international Eras Tour dates kick off at the end of the month, Swift let the audience know that this show was especially significant to her: “Because of the decision you have made to attend this concert, you are going to have to deal with my emotions — and I don’t know if you’ve heard about this or not, but I have a lot of them,” she said, and called this tour “the most extraordinary, fun, wonderful, magical experience of my entire life.”