As Dead & Company's stunning Las Vegas tour draws to a close, and Swift's European tour wraps up, it turns out these outings and their fans have more in common than meets the eye.
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce SURPRISES The Eras Tour on stage
Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic
The worlds of Swifties and Deadheads might not seem like they have much in common. There may not be that many music fans who have logged the same number of spins on their Spotify playlists for “Shakedown Street” and “Cornelia Street,” or “St. Stephen” and “Hey Stephen,” or “Althea” and “Dorothea.” Still, there’s reason to imagine that these two demographics truly were separated at birth, even if their average ages for Taylor Swift and Grateful Dead concertgoers wouldn’t automatically suggest that these are identical twin fandoms.
What they share is a deep and abiding interest in the power of live. And it’s not just about attending one show. However different their scale, Swift’s two-year Eras Tour and Dead & Company’s three-month residency at Las Vegas’ Sphere stand out as two of the most enchanting concert phenomena of the moment for similar reasons: because each performance on those respective runs is so heavily heralded as its own unique occasion that FOMO is literally a nightly occurrence for true fans. If you’re a true believer but can’t make it to many of either artist’s shows (and who can, short of a trust-fund baby?), you still log on obsessively to watch fan-generated livestreams or clips, or at the very least to stay up-to-date on the setlist variations, perhaps even in real time. It’s not just the tour, or the residency, that has event status; it’s the sense that every performance is compelling and will go down in history.
