Opening weekend of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour was a historic event for Swifties across the world.

Catering to her entire population, GAYLE and Paramore started the tour off strong in Glendale, AZ. Women with powerful, unmatched vocals were the only thing that could prepare the world for three hours of Taylor Swift songs.

In this environment, we saw a part of the music industry where women support women, and each of them were uniquely influential to their own personal success. Paramore is about to go on tour this summer, and they have never looked more prepared. It looks like Paramore’s Haley Williams is ready to run across stages and joke with her audience about how they promised to never play “Miz Biz” four years ago.

Then, Taylor appeared how she always does – in some crazy, dramatic lift from the center of the stage. With countless costume changes, blending genres of music and high-definition backgrounds, she started the era of the Eras tour.

What she did was tell a story out of order – in the same way reading flashback chapters in a book. Taylor hasn’t toured since her Reputation tour, and since then, she has released six albums. Not only did she have tons of new music to share with her audience for the first time, but she also performed songs from all of her albums (each album representing different “eras”). It came to a total of 44 songs. Taylor played for three hours straight at the age of 33.

Showing all the people who have wronged her personally that she could pack a 70,000-person stadium with her music was amazing to see. Throughout this concert, we saw her portray all the different kinds of relationships she has had in her life. Her dancers were also wonderful actors – performing as her friends, her partners, dancers at a ball and so much more. Taylor has mentioned in the past that throughout these last ten years she has had a lot of growing to do, and tonight, we got to see Taylor perform as a grown up. Channeling her inner child with the Fearless era was fun and light, but her Midnights era portrayed her as a grown woman who has been through it.

Most of us do not truly know celebrities in person, but Taylor is very good at making it seem like we know her personally if we are in her crowd. She sat on a grass-covered roof of a prop house surrounded by tall trees and sang folk songs. She sat at a piano and played for us and she thanked us for the years. She danced with a chair like it was a Burlesque show.

Women in the music industry change their persona every few years because they must if they want to stay on top. But Taylor, with her authenticity and loyalty to herself and her views, is what sets her apart. Singing about experience, love, loss, grief, storytelling and family is something we can all relate to at one point in our life or another.

Article and photographs by Lyric Williams.