Hi, my name is Taylor Swift - welcome to the Mistakes Tour . Yes, you are not mistaken.
Swift's Eras tour may be one of the defining events of 2023, but in fact, the most culturally significant moment of the year was the Mistakes Tour, and all the mistakes and misfortunes Swift made along the way.
The actual Eras tour was a behemoth, with Swift performing 45 songs from all 10 of her studio albums, including two acoustic song loops, in three and a half hours. Of course, a production of this magnitude is bound to have its occasional missteps, and these have become some of the show's most candid and hilarious moments.
Luckily, the singer has embraced the mistakes as well as her fans, even using them as part of the closing credits of her Eras Tour movie. With over 80 shows remaining in 2024, there are sure to be more interesting tidbits as Swift travels across Asia, Australia and Europe before returning to North America.
Below, revisit the best Swiftian tidbits of 2023.
"plan"
Swift's words became garbled when she performed "Mastermind" at an April 1 show in Arlington, which I attended. Instead of singing "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail," she pronounced "fail" as "plail," and now I sing it that way every time.
Miss her diving
Before her midnight performance, Swift snuck underneath the stage and pretended to swim across the catwalk before being washed up on the "shore" (the main stage). But during her April 13 performance in Tampa, she missed her cue, eliciting laughter from the audience as a confused Swift looked for a chance to jump. She made the most of her mistake, dramatically raising her arms as she prepared for a swan dive.
“Whisky first?”
Swift opts for "gorgeous" as the second secret song from her April 29 show in Atlanta, and screwed up the second pre-chorus. “Whiskey on ice, I—sunset,” she sings. She is confused and needs help. "Sunset and vines, whiskey on ice, whiskey or sunset first?" she asked, and everyone answered "whiskey."
"What a shame, I've been practicing this all day," she said angrily.
cape goes rogue
While performing "Willow" at a show in Philadelphia on May 12, the cape performer adversely affected her and landed on her hands when she attempted to twirl during a break in the voodoo dance. In typical Swift fashion, she shook it off (literally) and moved on, only to do the same thing again a few months later in Mexico City.
haunted piano
The May 21 show in Foxborough was an infamous "rain show," with heavy downpours causing Swift to wipe large puddles off the piano for her secret song. The next night, when the piano starts playing stray notes on its own, the incident comes back to haunt her—literally.
"Oh my gosh, did you hear that? Is this happening to you?" she asked the crowd, who were equally shocked.
Fighting with sequins
While performing the song in New Jersey on May 27, Swift got into a literal "lavender haze" when her lavender fur coat got tangled in her lavender sequined gown. For the next five seconds, she focused solely on untying the knot, looking like she was trying to swat a fly away.
scream at nothing
During a June 4 show in Chicago, Swift encountered sound issues and her microphone suddenly stopped working before playing "Lover." She screamed "Hello!" into the microphone, heard only by the first few rows. But instead of panicking, she made a mess of it, tapping the microphone like a TV remote and making faces until someone came over with backup.
swallow a fly
Swift's June 4 show was full of surprises, including a guest that even she didn't know existed. "I swallowed a bug and I'm sorry," she told the crowd, who laughed as she tried to cough it out. Sadly, she failed. "Oh, that's delicious," she said sarcastically. "Is it possible that none of you saw this?"
Everyone does it, but it makes the show even more special.
Tissue break
Even Swift isn't immune to the nasty cold. During a June 9 show in Detroit, she had to grab tissues from her "Champagne Problem" piano and blow her nose in front of the audience. “Things got to the point where I was becoming confused,” she said.
Naturally, the audience cheered her snot.
"Swift AF Boy"
The stage failed her again during Swift's June 30 show in Cincinnati when the elevator that usually takes her to change after "Look What You Made Me Do" didn't go down. She moved quickly, running to the main stage ahead of the dancers and exiting through the back door.
After the show, Swift commented on a TikTok video about the accident, joking that she was "still fast."
The Curse of the "Last Kiss"
Swift's performance of "Last Kiss" on July 8 was cursed because she messed up not once, but twice. She asked for permission to start over, but double-checked the lyrics a second time and promised not to mess up again.
Secret Song Dress
Swift only had a few seconds to put on the dress during the secret song session, which meant she didn't always get it right. Twice, she made the same mistake of not inserting her left arm into the sleeve properly. "I did it again," she said a second time, imploring the crowd, "Don't look at that!" Of course, they stopped looking when she revealed her first secret song.
barbie high heels
During her final show in Rio de Janeiro in 2023, the red soles of Swift's Christian Louboutin boots somehow broke. Instead of changing her shoes, she just tossed her heels into the crowd and stood on tiptoes like a Barbie doll for the rest of her lover's performance.
There's nothing Swift can't do.
