When Taylor Swift finally made it to Toronto, 608 days after she started the Eras Tour in Glendale, Ariz., some 50,000 Swifties descended upon the Rogers Centre for night one of her six-day residency. For many, it was a long time coming.
As the day neared, the excitement was palpable. Those who had managed to secure concert tickets spent weekends and school nights in a flurry of friendship bracelet-making, set list dissecting and outfit planning on Pinterest. To document those final hours before the first Toronto concert, The Globe and Mail asked three groups of tween and teen girls to photograph their journey. They shot on 2000s-era point-and-shoot digital cameras that have become a retro novelty among Gen Z and Gen Alpha – and are a throwback to how their parents used to take photos.
Many of the snapshots look like freeze frames from a 1990s home video: blurred, grainy and faces slightly out of focus, and all imbued with that warmth of familiarity. They feature emblems of Swiftie fandom – friendship bracelets stacked on arms, the number 13 drawn on hands – but the photos are also joyful glimpses of girlhood.
The day after the first Toronto concert, Hayley Mullins, the mother of 12-year-old Marnie and 10-year-old Maxine (whose photos are included below) said the concert felt like a communal balm. “Especially in the world right now, to see something so unapologetically feminine and happy and sparkly, and to see my girls experience it, that was just so special.”
Lilah and Anna Hennigar
Sisters Lilah, 15, and Anna, 13, drove from Ottawa with their parents, skipping two days of class to make the show. The morning of the concert, they went for brunch downtown where pretty much everyone was an identifiable Swiftie. “Either they would have Taylor merch, friendship bracelets or sparkly boots,” said Anna, who was wearing her own Folklore shirt. The girls got ready at a hotel, putting their hair in bubble braids and mini pigtails, donning sequined dresses and eating pizza on the walk to the Rogers Centre. After a year-and-a-half of waiting for this night, the sisters sang along to every song until their throats felt raw.
Loenne and Evan Spina
About two weeks before the concert, Toronto sisters Loenne, 15, and Evan, 13, started making friendship bracelets. Evan made a list of all the song titles they needed to spell out in friendship bracelets, turning her bedroom floor into a temporary workshop. The day of the show, the girls rushed home after school to get ready. Evan painted each fingernail a different colour to represents Swift’s eras – swirled purples for Speak Now, brick red for Red – and Loenne put glitter in her hair. Their mom Adrienne Spina is a fashion designer and made both of the girls’ tops: a Midnights-inspired velvet shirt with metallic stars for Loenne and a T-shirt that reads “Who is Taylor Swift anyway? Ew” for Evan. Ms. Spina panic-bought the first tickets she found on Ticketmaster, which happened to be floor seats. The trio couldn’t believe how close they were to the stage. “During Bad Blood, there was fire coming out of these light towers and it got really hot. It was really cool,” said Evan.
Marnie and Maxine Mullins
The day of the concert, sisters Marnie, 12, and Maxine, 10, took the day off school in Toronto. In the morning, they laid out their outfits (a sparkly pink T-shirt dress, pink fluffy coat and pink Converse for Marnie and a Shake it Off-inspired fringed frock and cowboy boots for Maxine), had their hair styled professionally for the first time, and then went to a drugstore to pick up glittery pink eyeshadow and blush. “It was like prom,” says their mom, Ms. Mullins, a long-time Swift fan herself. Maxine’s favourite moment of the concert was when Ms. Swift performed Shake it Off and for Marnie, it was the pop star’s entrance. “I was just so excited we were in the same room as her.”
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