Taylor Swift pauses her opening UK gig in Edinburgh after noticing a distressed fan in the crowd – and refuses to continue until they get help

Taylor Swift refused to continue performing in Edinburgh on Friday after noticing a fan in distress in the crowd.

The billionaire songstress, 34, was in the middle of singing Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve to a crowd of over 70,000 in Murrayfield when she noticed a fan causing concern.

In footage captured on social media, Taylor continued to strum her guitar, before saying: ‘Need help right in front of me, right in front of me please.

‘She’s right in front of me, just gonna keep playing until we notice where it is, right, right there.

‘I’m just gonna keep playing ’til somebody helps them, then I’m going to keep singing the song.

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Taylor Swift, 34, refused to continue performing in Edinburgh on Friday after noticing a fan in distress in the crowd

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The billionaire songstress was in the middle of Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve to a crowd of over 70,000 in Murrayfield when she noticed a fan wasn’t doing well

‘I don’t think anybody’s seen them yet and they’re gonna, because we’re not gonna keep singing, we’re just gonna keep talking about the people that need help in front of me. Just let me know when – I can do this all night!’

Finally, the fan appeared to get the help they needed as Taylor said: ‘OK, you’re good? AWESOME!’ Before singing: ‘God rest my soul…’

Taylor’s first Edinburgh show was a resounding success with fans and critics alike.

She touched down in the capital city around lunchtime on Friday before she was whisked away in a blacked-out vehicle accompanied by a police escort.

Taylor has received universally glowing reviews from British music critics who attended her first show in the Scottish capital.

Daily Mail‘s Adrian Thrills awarded the show five stars and described it as ‘a spectacle with substance’.

Praising the career-spanning nature of her three-hour long show, he wrote: ‘It’s easy to get lost in the Swiftiverse: the speculation surrounding the lyrics about her exes; the different colour codes for each album; the £1.5 billion this tour is expected to generate. But all the background noise fades the minute this brilliant performer hits the stage.’

Writing for The Guardian, Alexis Petridis awarded her show five out of five stars, noting the American singer seems ‘all-powerful’.

Taylor in Edinburh: ‘What a way to welcome a lass to your city!’

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Taylor’s first Edinburgh show was a resounding success with fans and critics alike. She has received universally glowing reviews from British music critics who attended

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Daily Mail ‘s Adrian Thrills awarded the show five stars and described it as ‘a spectacle with substance’

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Over the course of 46 songs, Taylor shook off a cramp in her hand, witnessed a live proposal, gifted a fan her hat and found time for a whopping 12 costume changes

He wrote: ‘It’s an incredibly impressive show. It succeeds in leaping between an eclectic range of material – dubstep-inspired, dark-hued pop; tweedy folk; monster-chorus-sporting anthems and acoustic guitar-driven songs that show her Nashville grounding – all of it linked by Swift’s keen melodic awareness and ability to turn songs about famous ex-partners and celebrity nemeses into universally relatable figures.’

In one of the most rave reviews, Neil McCormack also gave Taylor’s performance five stars in The Telegraph and said the devotion she inspired among her fans in the crowd was akin to a ‘secular religious mass ritual’.

He wrote: ‘There were no special guests, and little straying from a by-now familiar script. But no one could feel short-changed by a set that really had it all, succeeding in what might seem on paper to be an impossible synthesis of serious singer songwriter and full on commercial pop machine.

‘Swift left it all onstage, standing sweaty and exhausted at the end, with a smile that somehow extended beyond her permanent air of artificial delight to shine with unalloyed joy.’

Over the course of 46 songs, Taylor shook off a cramp in her hand, witnessed a live proposal, gifted a fan her hat and even suspended a tune so fans could receive medical aid – and in between those events found time for an almost insurmountable 12 costume changes.

Among the outfits were including a double-breasted black and gold pinstripe blazer dress, a white Vivienne Westwood dress and a stunning lilac gown complete with train.

Fans queued for hours – some as early as 3am – in order to be the first inside for the gig, which kicked off following pop-punk band Paramore’s set at exactly 7.18pm.

Between songs, Taylor paused to tell them: ‘What a way to welcome a lass to Scotland… you’ve gone and made me feel so amazing… You’ve got me feeling really, really powerful.’ Towards the end, she vowed: ‘We have to do this again.’

Taylor drove the native fans wild after telling them lockdown-era album Folklore was inspired by their home country.

In remarks reported by BBC News, she said: ‘There was so much TV, so much white wine, covered in cat hair. That was my reality. So I thought, ‘I’m going to create an imaginary world and escape into it’.

‘That was Folklore, and it was probably based online of videos I’ve seen of Scotland.’

She also told the adoring crowd earlier in the show: ‘My biggest regret is that I should have played in Scotland more. I should have brought every tour to Scotland. I can’t stop looking at the crowd…it’s captivating.’

The three-and-a-half hour show charted the singer’s 20-year professional music career, from aspiring country singer to pop star and now global cultural juggernaut with a fandom unrivalled by almost any other musical act on the planet – and a reported net worth of $1.3billion (£1.02billion).

Taylor Swift Eras Tour in Edinburgh review: Singer is at the peak of her powers as she kicks off her first UK show in spectacular style, writes ADRIAN THRILLS

Taylor Swift Eras Tour, Murrayfield Stadium Edinburgh 

Verdict: A spectacle with substance

Rating:

Welcomed by a multi-coloured sea of sequins, stetsons, glittery face-paint and cowgirl boots, Taylor Swift brought her record-breaking Eras tour to Britain in spectacular fashion on Friday.

Playing the first of 15 UK shows that will stretch out across the summer, the American megastar wowed the 72,990 Swifties, most of them female, who had gathered in a windy but sunny Edinburgh.

‘You’ve got me feeling so powerful,’ she told fans, shortly after emerging from below the stage, dressed in a spangly leotard.

The career-spanning, three-hours-plus epic that followed was divided into ten acts, or ‘eras’, with each act devoted to one of the Pennsylvania-born singer’s studio LPs.

I saw Taylor, 34, on 2014’s Red tour, the following year’s 1989 show, and 2018’s Reputation trek. This was bigger, better and bolder. Performed with a six-piece band, four backing singers, 16 dancers, three stages and an array of digital effects, it felt like a cross between a futuristic rock concert and a Broadway blockbuster. With bells on.

But Swift’s great trick is her knack of combining theatrical spectacle with substance. Her schooling in country music’s story-telling tradition has given her the skill to convey her emotions in vivid, relatable songs that connect with her fans.

She sang 47 of them here, and most were accompanied by word-perfect singalongs. Even a lyrical, ten-minute version of the ballad All Too Well, from a re-recording of 2012’s Red, got the singalong treatment.

The show opened under bright blue skies with 2019’s Lover album – its early slot a nod, perhaps, to the Lover Fest tour she had to cancel during the pandemic. The album’s waltz-time title track, strummed on a sky-blue guitar, was an early highlight.

We then zipped back to the country-pop of 2008’s Fearless (the eras weren’t showcased chronologically) before the decibel level went up a notch with the brash Red and its whip-smart pop hits. I Knew You Were Trouble would have raised the roof if Murrayfield had one.

The mood shifted with each act. For Reputation, one of Swift’s weaker albums, it was dark and peevish. Her two pandemic releases, Folklore and Evermore, were bundled together, as dusk fell, in a single ‘Folk-more’ act with a pastoral feel and, in Cardigan and Betty, two of her most finely-crafted character sketches. Champagne Problems, sung singer-songwriter style at the piano, was prefaced with lengthy lockdown reminiscences. ‘We never knew whether we’d ever get to do this concert thing again,’ she said.

By the time we reached the 1989 era, with its fun, feel-good hits Style, Blank Space and Shake It Off, the singalongs had become gleeful shout-alongs.

Swift’s two most recent LPs, Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department, featured late on, but even a setlist as tightly-planned as this one allowed some room for spontaneity, and an ‘unplugged’ section towards the end of the show saw Taylor solo on guitar and then piano sing spur of the moment songs, including ‘Tis The Damn Season and Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve.

It’s easy to get lost in the Swiftiverse: the speculation surrounding the lyrics about her exes; the different colour codes for each album; the £1.5 billion this tour is expected to generate. But all the background noise fades the minute this brilliant performer hits the stage.

With two more Edinburgh gigs tonight and tomorrow, and further concerts in Liverpool, Cardiff and London, those lucky enough to have tickets will see a show both Era-spanning and era-defining. With Taylor at the peak of her powers, it’s the music event of the year.