Taylor Swift performs onstage during Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour at Levi’s Stadium on July 28, 2023 in Santa Clara, California.
Jeff Kravitz/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Mana
At Taylor Swift’s sold-out Saturday night show in Santa Clara, she delighted in the power the city had granted her. Earlier this month, Santa Clara Mayor Lisa Gillmor declared Swift the honorary mayor and renamed the city “Swiftie Clara” for July 28 and 29, the two nights she was in town for her Eras Tour.
“The amount that you guys have made us feel welcome here, it’s the maximum amount,” Swift told the crowd in the midst of the “Evermore” album section of her over three hour-long set, sitting at a mossy piano in a sparkly red dress.
She explained that her parents, who “are the only people that are actually brave enough to see articles about me on the internet,” were the ones to inform her of her honorary Santa Clara mayor status for the weekend.
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“So sick,” she said. “I was like, ‘What do you think I can do with that?’ And my dad was like, ‘Absolutely nothing. You can do nothing with that.’ But it’s really cool and it’s really nice of your city to do that, very very cute.”
Later in the set, after neighboring amusement park Great America set off fireworks behind the stadium at 9:45 p.m. during her performance of “I Knew You Were Trouble,” Swift nodded to her mayoral status once again.
“Do you know why they were doing that? It’s because I’m the mayor,” she joked. “They do that for all mayors.”
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In contrast to this display of the indisputable star power she wields, Swift also took a moment during the “Folklore” portion of the night to remind fans that she’s just like them (well, sort of). She explained that while yes, she did write and release two entire albums during the pandemic shutdown in 2020 (“Folklore and “Evermore”), she also did totally normal things, too.
“‘Folklore’ was the productive thing that I did,” she said. “The other stuff I did was just, you know, I don’t know, like bathtubs full of white wine. Not taking baths in it, but that amount … And watching as much TV as everyone else did. I did do very non-productive things during the pandemic, too.”
But Swift didn’t leave the impression of being relatable linger for too long. At the end of the night, she inducted her power as Santa Clara mayor once again to break Levi Stadium’s 11 p.m. curfew for the second night in row, wrapping up her show around 11:25 p.m. with — you guessed it — more fireworks.