Moving Swiftly on, Taylor dives into Fearless.

Image source, Reuters

• Nominated for 52 Grammys, has won 14.
• Most Album of the Year Grammy wins (4)
• Most-awarded artist of the American Music Awards (40)
• Most-awarded artist of the Billboard Music Awards (39)
• 2023's most streamed artist on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music
• The Eras Tour is the highest grossing music tour of all time (Over $1b/£782m)
• The Eras Tour film is the highest grossing concert tour film of all time (Over $250m/£195m)

"I have not got to be in Scotland for almost a decade now and I was wondering, what’s it going to be like? Taylor tells the Murrayfield crowd.

“Well you kind of answered me before we even started because someone pulled me aside and said, ‘this is the highest attended concert in Scottish history.’”

“What a way to make a lass feel special.”

Mark Savage
BBC Music correspondent

Taylor Swift moves onto You Need To Calm Down, and then straight into Lover.

An early highlight of the show is The Man – a song about sexist double standards that Swift performs in an office cubicle while dancers bash typewriters and sip lattes from paper cups.

Swift wrote the song as a thought experiment, wondering if her career would be perceived differently if she were a man.

“If I had made all the same choices, all the same mistakes, all the same accomplishments, how would it read?” she asked Vogue magazine.

Mark Savage
BBC Music correspondent

“Oh Edinburgh, look what you’ve done,” says Taylor as she greets the audience.

“You’ve made me feel, really, really powerful.”

It’s her traditional intro to the third song of the night, The Man.

Mark Savage
BBC Music correspondent

“Hello Edinburgh!” shouts Taylor after the second chorus of Cruel Summer. “Is there anyone here who knows the lyrics to this bridge?”

Of course there is. 73,000 of them.

Mark Savage
BBC Music correspondent

Typically, pop stars launch their show with a big hit, something that’s a cornerstone of their career.

Not tonight.

From its opening night, The Eras Tour has begun with Miss Americana and The Heartbreak Prince, a deep cut from 2019’s Lover album.Taylor never leaves much to chance, so why kick off with this song?

The prevailing theory is that the lyric“it’s been a long time coming”, which also features in the intro video, is a message to fans who went five years without seeing Taylor Swift on stage.

Opening with a fan favourite also sends a message about who the concert is aimed at.

More than anything, Eras is a show for the diehard Swifties, from the first bars to the closing fireworks.

Mark Savage
BBC Music correspondent

Taylor Swift begins her set with Miss Americana and then Cruel Summer.

Mark Savage
BBC Music correspondent

And with that... the show has begun!!!

Mark Savage
BBC Music correspondent

Huge cheer as the band walk out to take their positions backstage.

I haven’t seen the janitor’s box that contains Taylor yet… but they’ve just started playing Lady Gaga’s Applause - which means the show is imminent.

Taylor typically plays for 3 hours and 20 minutes, squeezing 44 songs into her stage time. On recent dates, the setlist has looked like this:

• Act I: Lover – With upbeat pop songs like Cruel Summer and You Need To Calm Down from 2018’s Lover album
• Act II: Fearless – Looking back at Taylor’s breakthrough country album, which won album of the year at the 2010 Grammy Awards
• Act III: Red – Although the Red album was her pop crossover moment, this set is dominated by the epic, 10-minute ballad All Too Well(Taylor’s Version).
• Act IV: Speak Now – Taylor’s third album is dispensed in the space of one song, Enchanted.
• Act V: Reputation – The black sheep in her discography, Reputation is an angry and combative response to her critics. This leads to one of the most dynamic sets in the show, featuring the hits Are You Ready For It and Look What You Made Me Do.
• Act VI: Folkmore – The largely acoustic, pandemic-era albums Folklore and Evermore have been treated as one combined“era” since the tour reached Europe.
• Act VII: 1989 – Taylor’s biggest-selling, and most acclaimed era is her pop masterpiece 1989. Expect to hear signature songs Shake It Off and Blank Space.
• Act VIII: The Tortured Poets Department – An all-new era, built around her latest album, a scorched-earth break-up record that contains hits like Down Bad and Fortnight.
• Act IX: Acoustic Set – Featuring two“surprise songs” that are usually a one-off performance for the tour.
• Act X: Midnights – The show concludes with the woozy, nocturnal sounds of 2022’s Midnights album, including Anti-Hero and show closer Karma.

Any moment now Taylor Swift will take to the stage. The Murrayfield Stadium crowd is approaching fever pitch.

Mark Savage
BBC Music correspondent

When the Eras Tour kicked off in March 2023, fans didn’t know what to expect beyond her statement that it would entail "a journey through the musical eras of (her) career".

On that first night, in Glendale, Arizona, fans were treated to an exhaustive, three-hour survey of her songs about girls who love boys who don’t know how to love them back.

Each of her 10 (now 11) albums is treated as a distinct section of the show, with its own set, colour scheme and costume changes. The acoustic, folksy songs of Folklore are performed in a mossy cabin; the fluorescent pop hits of 1989 get blazing pyrotechnics and pin-sharp choreography.

Image source, Getty Images

The songs aren’t presented chronologically – partly to keep the pace from flagging, and partly to focus your mind on how nimbly Swift can adapt to new sounds and pop trends.

But for many fans, the highlight of every show is the “surprise set” – where the star performs a few songs that aren’t part of the regular setlist. There have already been more than 100 of them – and speculation has already begun about tonight’s selection.

My money’s on Guilty As Sin, from her new album The Tortured Poets Department, which name-checks Scottish art-pop band The Blue Nile. How about you?

The excitement levels are cranking right up inside Murrayfield Stadium, with Taylor Swift's appearance just 10 minutes away.

Stick with us and get a feel for the mega gig which the whole of the UK is talking about.

Mark Savage
BBC Music correspondent

It’s a short 45-minute set from Paramore, but they keep their promise to warm everyone up, careening through some of their biggest, crowd-warmingest hits - from Ain’t It Fun and Still Into You to the magnificently spiky This Is Why.

Sometimes stadium support acts are defeated by the scale of the venue (and, let’s be honest, the disinterest of the fans). Not here. Hayley Williams’ powerhouse vocals and athletic stage performance had everyone on side from the get go.

“Thank you so much,” she says as they leave the stage. We can’t wait to do it two more times in Edinburgh.”

Mark Savage
BBC Music correspondent

Up next from Paramore is Misery Business - possibly their signature song, but one they’ve been reluctant to play at times.

The rumour is that Taylor specifically asked them to add it to the setlist on the Eras Tour.

Mark Savage
BBC Music correspondent

Back to support act Paramore, who briefly pause the music to pose for a photo with the whole of the Murrayfield Stadium crowd waving at them.

“We started this band in 2003 in Nashville Tennessee alongside someone you love very much, Miss Taylor Swift,” says Hayley.

“And it’s a real honour, all these years later, to be sharing the stage with her on the biggest tour ever.”

After that they launch into The Only Exception. What a song.

Mark Savage
BBC Music correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

After months of anticipation, the Eras Tour has finally landed in the UK.

Amazingly, tonight will be only the second time Taylor has played in Scotland – the last time being on the 1989 tour back in 2015.

She returns an even bigger star than last time.

No pop star has achieved this level of cultural dominance since Michael Jackson and Madonna in the 1980s.

Taylor’s every move is documented, analysed and dissected. Her albums set sales records, her concerts register on the Richter scale, and her relationship with American Football star Travis Kelce gave the Super Bowl its highest-ever audience - even though she didn’t even play.

Demand for tickets in Edinburgh is sky-high.

Scalpers are charging up to £3,000 for just one seat at tonight’s show, and fans who can’t get into Murrayfield Stadium are expected to gather outside for the chance just to hear her (in the US, this phenomenon was dubbed “Taylor-gating”.)

The star is due on stage around 19:00 BST. Stay with us as the action unfolds.

Mark Savage
BBC Music correspondent

Huge roar in the stadium as Paramore take to the stage. Hayley Williams limbers up, leaning into the audience on her mic stand as they rip into Hard Times. After a punchy cover of Talking Heads’ Burning Down The House, Hayley Williams greets the crowd.

“We are so happy to be back here in Edinburgh and the UK. Happy Pride month!” she yells.

“It is our job to get you ripe and ready for the best Eras tour of your life, alright?

“That’s our job and we take it seriously. So if you know any of the words to these songs, you know what to do… Scream them.

"And if you don’t know the words, here’s your chance to learn them.”

With that, Paramore launch into one of their biggest hits, Still Into You. Sure enough, the crowd know it off by heart.