Although the loss of a fan at the first of three scheduled Taylor Swift concerts in Rio de Janeiro left the singer “with a shattered heart,” at the Friday night (Nov. 17) show she had made her acoustic set special when she debuted “Suburban Legends” live.
Swift surprised the crowd with the vault track from 1989 (Taylor’s Version) on piano at the city’s Estádio Olímpico Nilton Santos.
The song might be new, but Swifties screamed in excitement from the first line.
Smiling through the chorus as she went through it live for the first time in Brazil, the pop star sang, “I didn’t come here to make friends/ We were born to be suburban legends/ When you hold me, it holds me together/ And you kiss me in a way that’s gonna screw me up forever.”
Before “Suburban Legends,” Swift pulled a song out of her earliest catalog, one that hadn’t been played live in probably 15 years: “Stay Beautiful,” which is on her debut, self-titled album.
“I wanted to play something to honor the fact that so many amazing Brazilian fans have been with me since day one, since the first album,” she said.
“It’s because you, just this crowd, Rio, you’re just so beautiful,” she continued. “And I hope you stay that way.”
Swift’s second concert in Rio de Janeiro was postponed from Saturday to Monday, Nov. 20, due to extreme temperatures. From her dressing room at the stadium, Swift wrote on social media: “The safety and well-being of my fans, fellow performers, and crew has to and always will come first.”
On Friday night, Swift expressed her grief over the loss of 23-year-old fan Ana Clara Benevides Machado, who died the first night of the singer’s Eras Tour in Rio, where temperatures reached 102.4 degrees Fahrenheit. The young woman was treated by paramedics at the stadium after she said she wasn’t feeling well, and later taken to a hospital, where she passed away, according to an Instagram post by concert promoter T4F. The exact cause of Machado’s death had not been revealed at press time.
“I can’t even tell you how devastated I am by this. There’s very little information I have other than the fact that she was so incredibly beautiful and far too young,” she wrote in a statement she released that night. “I’m not going to be able to speak about this from stage because I feel overwhelmed by grief when I even try to talk about it. I want to say now I feel this loss deeply and my broken heart goes out to her family and friends. This is the last thing I ever thought would happen when we decided to bring this tour to Brazil.”
See a clip of Swift’s “Stay Beautiful” and “Suburban Legends” performances below.
