CBS News
Taylor Swift’s European Eras Tour leg kicked off in Paris with a new setlist. See which songs are in and out.
Taylor Swift fever struck Paris on Thursday as the highest-grossing tour in history finally arrived in Europe, with fans treated to the first-ever performance of songs from her latest album.
The Eras Tour began its European leg with four dates at the La Defense Arena in Paris.
“I wish I could have toured Europe more. This is a dream crowd,” the 34-year-old megastar told the ecstatic audience.
There were deafening shrieks as images of typewriter sheets indicated that songs off the new album “The Tortured Poets Department” were starting late in the show.
Emerging in a lyrics-covered dress, she ran through several of the darker new tracks starting with “But Daddy I Love Him” and “Fortnight”, a particularly furious rendition of “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” and an elaborate “I Can Do it with a Broken Heart,” with a golden-era Hollywood dance routine.
Other “The Tortured Poets Department” songs performed included “So High School,” “Down Bad” and “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” according to ETonline.
“You were the first crowd to see songs from ‘The Tortured Poets Department’,” she said, before adding: “Or, as I like to call it, ‘Female Rage: the Musical.'”
That was a dream come true for many in the audience.
“I’ve been so excited for so long, I can’t believe it’s actually happening,” said 11-year-old Emma, who had flown in with her mother from New York.
Adding songs from “The Tortured Poets Department” wasn’t the only change to the show and its 45-song setlist.
Perhaps the biggest change, according to ETonline, is the “Folklore” and “Evermore” setlists were combined, cutting four songs across the two albums: “‘Tis the Damn Season,” “Tolerate It,” “The 1” and “The Last Great American Dynasty.”
“On the Eras Tour, we have now reunited the sisters, combined them into one chapter,” Swift said, according to video posted to social media. “You can call it “Folklore, Evermore” or you can call it the Sister Albums! You can call it whatever you want as long as you promise to sing ‘Champagne Problems’ with me.”
“The Archer” was removed from the “Lovers” portion of the show and “Long Live” was cut from the “Speak Now” era setlist, according to ETonline.
One of the secret songs was, fittingly, the “Midnights” bonus track “Paris.”
Parts of the show were also rearranged to make room for the newest era. The “Red” era was moved from the fifth to the third slot, according to ETonline, and the newest album was introduced following the “1989” set.
The venue said a fifth of the crowd were from the United States — many attracted by Europe’s rules against charging huge mark-ups on resale tickets that can save Americans thousands of dollars compared with shows at home.
Georg’Ann Daly decided to celebrate her 23rd birthday with the Paris show. It meant flying from Nashville to Chicago to London and catching the Eurostar to Paris.
“I’ve always been obsessed with Taylor Swift,” she told AFP.
A handful of superfans camped out from Tuesday in Paris to ensure they got a prime spot.
“I didn’t plan to, but I came to check it out and I saw the first tents and I panicked a little,” said Chris, 30.
Noah, 20, is seeing all four Paris concerts — he used 22 email addresses to get through the lottery system and secure the tickets.
After wrapping up her run in Paris, Swift will head for dates in Sweden, Portugal, Spain, Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Poland and Austria.
The Eras Tour has worked its way across North and South America and Asia since starting in March 2023.
By the end of the year, it had already become the first to sell more than $1 billion in tickets and is on track to more than double that by the time it concludes in Vancouver this December.
Swift’s popularity shows no sign of dimming — the new album sold 1.4 million copies on its first day and broke every streaming record, reaching a billion streams on Spotify within five days.
Swift’s tell-all dissections of her love stories have been the fuel powering her global domination, and fans have been poring over “The Tortured Poets Department” for cryptic clues about ex-boyfriend Joe Alwyn, her short-but-dramatic fling with Matty Healy (lead singer of The 1975), and her current partner, American football star Travis Kelce.
“Taylor talks about toxic relationships, impossible love, politics, mental health, and so much more,” said Chris as she waited by her tent for the big moment. “I think we can all find a song that resonates with our experiences.”
CBS News
Former Trump national security adviser says next couple months are “really critical” for Ukraine
Washington — Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, a former national security adviser to Donald Trump, said Sunday that the upcoming months will be “really critical” in determining the “next phase” of the war in Ukraine as the president-elect is expected to work to force a negotiated settlement when he enters office.
McMaster, a CBS News contributor, said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that Russia and Ukraine are both incentivized to make “as many gains on the battlefield as they can before the new Trump administration comes in” as the two countries seek leverage in negotiations.
With an eye toward strengthening Ukraine’s standing before President-elect Donald Trump returns to office in the new year, the Biden administration agreed in recent days to provide anti-personnel land mines for use, while lifting restrictions on Ukraine’s use of U.S.-made longer range missiles to strike within Russian territory. The moves come as Ukraine marked more than 1,000 days since Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
Meanwhile, many of Trump’s key selection for top posts in his administration — Rep. Mike Waltz for national security adviser and Sens. Marco Rubio for secretary of state and JD Vance for Vice President — haven’t been supportive of providing continued assistance to Ukraine, or have advocated for a negotiated end to the war.
McMaster said the dynamic is “a real problem” and delivers a “psychological blow to the Ukrainians.”
“Ukrainians are struggling to generate the manpower that they need and to sustain their defensive efforts, and it’s important that they get the weapons they need and the training that they need, but also they have to have the confidence that they can prevail,” he said. “And any sort of messages that we might reduce our aid are quite damaging to them from a moral perspective.”
McMaster said he’s hopeful that Trump’s picks, and the president-elect himself, will “begin to see the quite obvious connections between the war in Ukraine and this axis of aggressors that are doing everything they can to tear down the existing international order.” He cited the North Korean soldiers fighting on European soil in the first major war in Europe since World War II, the efforts China is taking to “sustain Russia’s war-making machine,” and the drones and missiles Iran has provided as part of the broader picture.
“So I think what’s happened is so many people have taken such a myopic view of Ukraine, and they’ve misunderstood Putin’s intentions and how consequential the war is to our interests across the world,” McMaster said.
On Trump’s selections for top national security and defense posts, McMaster stressed the importance of the Senate’s advice and consent role in making sure “the best people are in those positions.”
McMaster outlined that based on his experience, Trump listens to advice and learns from those around him. And he argued that the nominees for director of national intelligence and defense secretary should be asked key questions like how they will “reconcile peace through strength,” and what they think “motivates, drives and constrains” Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump has tapped former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence, who has been criticized for her views on Russia and other U.S. adversaries. McMaster said Sunday that Gabbard has a “fundamental misunderstanding” about what motivates Putin.
More broadly, McMaster said he “can’t understand” the Republicans who “tend to parrot Vladimir Putin’s talking points,” saying “they’ve got to disabuse themselves of this strange affection for Vladimir Putin.”
Meanwhile, when asked about Trump’s recent selection of Sebastian Gorka as senior director for counterterrorism and deputy assistant to the president, McMaster said he doesn’t think Gorka is a good person to advise the president-elect on national security. But he noted that “the president, others who are working with him, will probably determine that pretty quickly.”
CBS News
Sen. Van Hollen says Biden is “not fully complying with American law” on Israeli arms shipments
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
CBS News
Rep.-elect Sarah McBride says “I didn’t run” for Congrees “to talk about what bathroom I use”
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.