Europe Eras Tour day two: HERE WE GO! Paramore’s set as special guest opening act for Taylor Swift’s ‘The Eras Tour’ in Europe lasting approximately 40 minutes! #ParisTSTheErasTour

Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift performs onstage during “Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour” at La Defense on May 9, 2024 in Paris, France.

Taylor Swift’s Thursday (May 9) performance at the la Défense Arena in Paris marked the beginning of a new era – literally. At what she called “the kick-off of the European leg of the Eras Tour,” Swift added a new section of songs from The Tortured Poets Department, which debuted on the Billboard 200 with 2.61 million equivalent album units and is currently No. 1 for a second week, in between the Australasia shows and a string of European shows through the end of August. As if to underscore the special occasion, Swift pointed out that it was the first time she had played those songs on the Eras Tour — “or as I call it, Female Rage: The Musical.”

For a truly global superstar, Swift hasn’t toured much in Europe on a serious scale, but both French fans and a significant number of concert tourists from the U.S. knew what to expect. Even the normally minimalist French swapped their black dresses for pink frills and lyric-inspired outfits. (Respect to the Best Dressed Dads: One guy in a “Dad Reputation” T-shirt, another in one that said “Look What My Daughter Made Me Do”.)

As soon as Tortured Poets-style graphics came on the screens, the applause was deafening, and it stayed that way as Swift played “But Daddy I Love Him,” “So High School,” “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” “Down Bad,” “Fortnight,” “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” and “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.” The screaming only got louder for “Paris.”

Based on the first night, it seems that the European shows on the Eras Tour will not be a break with the rest of the tour so much as an evolution – as Swift releases more music, the show needs to grow as she does. Here are some new, and a few familiar, highlights.

Paramore’s Talking Heads Cover

Swift isn’t only a hard act to follow, she’s hard to open for, and Paramore will play before her all summer in some of the biggest venues in Europe. So frontwoman Haley Williams laid out the band’s mission: Getting the crowd “ripe and ready for Miss Taylor Swift.” They did just that, kicking their set into high gear with the second song, a sharp-edged cover of the Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House.” The song is half funk, half a herky-jerky deconstruction of it, and Paramore leaned into that contradiction, as Williams, an energetic performer, did her best high-octane, high-awkwardness dance. “There’s no such thing as bad dancing at a Paramore show,” she told the crowd after that.” But since Swift’s performance is polished to a high sheen, Paramore’s manic, messy energy made a nice contrast.