Taylor Swift Performs With Aaron Dessner At Era’s Show After Revealing New Surprise Song Rule

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Taylor Swift has been giving her stans exactly what they want on The Eras tour and she topped herself in Tampa on Friday night. Not only did she perform her song “The Great War” from her latest album Midnights for the first time in concert, but she did it with the help of her frequent collaborator by her side. And the songstress welcomed National bandmember Aaron Dessner onstage with an incredible introduction.

📰| “It’s a long walk, you gotta keep going.” Taylor Swift to Aaron Dessner, on the length of the Eras Tour catwalk. pic.twitter.com/M665cmokoS

— hailey heard tgw and yoyok live (@nobodynoswift) April 15, 2023

“He’s so incredibly brilliant, we’ve made so much music together over the years, and we are so lucky tonight Tampa Bay, Florida cause Aaron Dessner is here!” Taylor announced to the audience, as seen in the clip above. When it took a few moments for Aaron to cross the gigantic stage to meet Taylor, she told the crowd to continue cheering. “It’s a long walk, you gotta keep going,” she quipped.

Shortly after the incredible performance, Aaron reportedly took to Twitter to share his excitement over it, and even quoted another Taylor song. In a fan repost of Aaron’s reported tweet, the message read, “Playing the Great War for the first time in Tampa…Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine getting to play a song for 80,000 people on acoustic guitar with @taylorswift.”

🎤| Taylor Swift and Aaron Dessner performing "The Great War" pic.twitter.com/iVv39rE8q3

— The Swift Society (@TheSwiftSociety) April 15, 2023

Along with the surprise duet, Taylor announced a change to a rule she made about never performing the same song twice during her acoustic portion of the Eras tour. “Basically, when I started the tour, I said, ‘In the acoustic section, I am never repeating a song. I’m never doing songs more than once,'” Taylor told the Tampa audience, per Just Jared. “But now I’m like, ‘Ugh, there are so many songs I want to do more than once. So, I’m making a little caveat to the rule, which is that if [a song] is on Midnights, I can do it however many times I want because Midnights is, like, the most accurate picture of my life to date,” Taylor added.

The rule may be going into effect immediately, as Taylor not only debuted “The Great War” from Midnights, but she also wowed the crowd with a rendition of “You’re On Your Own, Kid.” As fans likely want Taylor to perform those songs repeatedly, the rule change was much needed and definitely welcomed.

Her fans are also likely to continue sending love and support to the Grammy winner after it was reported that she split with longtime boyfriend Joe Alwyn just a week ago. As she joked to the audience on the first night of the Tampa shows, “We have a lot to catch up on.”