Look, y'all, I'm about to go ham on Nats Stadium because Taylor Swift got stuck onstage in DC during the 1989 tour and basically lived out all our worst nightmares. I can tell you about it because I was there tonight and I watched it. (Along with Lorde performing with Taylor Swift, which is a whole separate freakout I'll get to in a minute.) What happened was that the platform that Taylor stands on, somewhere around 7 to 9 feet off of the ground, just decided it was #done doing its job right in the middle of her standing on it. At first it wasn't super clear that it was a problem because she'd also been having issues with her monitor (GET IT TOGETHER, AMERICA), but at some point she turned and confessed to us all that she was, in fact, super duper trapped up in the air in giant stiletto heels.
I gotta say, though, Taylor took it like a total champ. She unharnessed herself from the safety belt and basically defied death walking up and down the platform, and even though the overly concerned grandma in me was like "NO TAYLOR NO," she was ace at handling the whole thing. And it was a pretty beautiful moment to connect with fans—she said she was just going to wing it, and that she knew we were all here to hear the music anyway, which couldn't have been truer.
That being said...here's hoping that the stadium gets it together for her second performance tomorrow night. Here's the video of the whole shenanigan:
But hey. To be fair, Lorde had just walked up and down the catwalk. If I were a stage and Lorde just kicked my ass up and down, then I'd probably be too gobsmacked to function, too. The singer performed "Royals," having flown in a monster 19 hours from New Zealand to blow all of our minds.
All's well that ends well. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to wipe an excessive amount of sweat and bright purple Sharpie'd Taylor Swift lyrics off my arm before any of my co-workers see me in my full on post-Swiftie glory. (JUST KIDDING, LET THEM SEE.)
