Taylor Swift started the Eras Tour when people needed it most. Now, it’s time to say goodbye

As Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour wraps up after a two-year run around the globe, this is not just the end of an important chapter in her career, it’s a momentous conclusion to a significant chapter in modern music history.

Taylor Swift was still a new-to-the-scene country artist when she performed at Cowboys, a small bar in the Colorado Springs area, in 2007. At the end of the show, she took two purple beaded bracelets off of her wrist and handed them to a woman who’d been at the front of the stage, singing her songs louder than anyone else. Then-college student Carola Lovering, the recipient of Swift’s token of appreciation, kept one bracelet for herself and gave the other to her best friend, Joanie Goldfarb, who was standing next to her. Lovering, who is now an established author and mom of two, and Goldfarb reunited at the Eras Tour this October. Though the bracelets once gifted to them by Swift were long lost, they exchanged new ones with other concertgoers, taking part in a now-tradition born during the superstar’s Era Tour, the final three shows of which begin Friday in Vancouver. Everyone from high-ranking politicians to Sir Paul McCartney himself showed up to see Swift perform a three-hour show that included a 44-song setlist of her greatest hits spanning her now 18-year career. Her concerts caused earthquakes, created a Beatlemania-level of fervor, impacted local economies and brought a collective joy to millions of people still reeling from the dark days of the pandemic. As the tour wraps up after a two-year run around the globe, this is not just the end of an important chapter in Swift’s career, it’s a momentous conclusion to a significant chapter in modern music history. “I think at an emotional and cultural level, it’s on par with, let’s say Elvis, Michael Jackson, Sinatra, you could say Madonna, and also the Beatles. Just that deep attachment to these artists and the frenzy around it,” Jasen Emmons, chief curator and VP of curatorial affairs at Los Angeles’ Grammy Museum told CNN in a recent interview. “Whether she orchestrated it or not, she’s created this zeitgeist around that tour that feels unprecedented.” As were so many other industries, the music world was rocked after the global pandemic shut down restaurants, theaters, music venues or anywhere people would gather for a good time. Swift was set to kick off her previously announced Lover Fest tour when that was postponed and then ultimately cancelled.