Taylor Swift is getting ready to say bonjour to Paris and kick off the next leg of her Eras Tour in style.
Swift, 34, will perform four sold-out shows at Paris’ La Défense Arena starting on Thursday, May 9. The concert will begin at 6:30 p.m. local time with opening act Paramore’s set. The City of Lights is six hours ahead of the United States’ East Coast, meaning that it will be 12:30 p.m. EST when Paramore’s performance begins.
Swift — who kicked off her Eras Tour in Glendale, Arizona in March 2023 — is expected to take the stage at 7:30 p.m. (1:30 p.m. EST) and reach her “surprise song” section by 10:15 local time (4:15 for East Coast-based Swifties). The concert will officially end 35 minutes later. A handful of concert attendees will livestream the show via X, TikTok and YouTube for other Swifties to experience the show from afar. For instance, checking social feeds at 4:15 p.m. ET would reveal Swift’s surprise song choices in real time.
Thursday’s concert will be Swift’s first since the release of her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department. After the double-LP broke all sorts of streaming and sales records, the Grammy winner was more excited than ever to bring Eras across the pond to Europe.
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“My mind is blown. I’m completely floored by the love you’ve shown this album. 2.6 million ARE YOU ACTUALLY SERIOUS??” Swift wrote via X last month. “Thank you for listening, streaming, and welcoming Tortured Poets into your life. Feeling completely overwhelmed. I was already so fired up to get back to the tour but you doing THIS?? May 9th can’t come soon enough.”
Swift devotes sections of the show to each of her past albums — save for her self-titled debut record, which sometimes pops up in her rotating acoustic section — during each concert. It is currently unknown if TTPD will get an official place on the setlist or be weaved into the “surprise song” performances.
Her French tour promoter recently hinted that TTPD, a 31-song anthology, will be featured in the show.
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“She’s going to include new pieces from her new album,” Arnaud Meersseman told Radio France in a Thursday interview, noting the French Eras gigs will have a “slightly modified show” than previous performances.
Swift will perform follow-up shows in Paris on Friday, May 10, Saturday, May 11, and Sunday, May 12, before taking Eras around Europe and the United Kingdom for more than 40 shows. Swift returns to France on June 2 and 3 for back-to-back concerts in Lyon.
Paramore, led by the pop star’s pal Hayley Williams, will join Swift for the entire European leg.
“I’m so ready to be tour-mates,” Williams, 35, gushed via Instagram Story in April while praising TTPD. “Had me from the storytelling alone, my friend. Every one of us knows this kind of grief! It’s so impressive to me how specific and colorful Taylor’s words get without ever losing the universal thread. I’m so ready to be tour-mates.”
