Missy Higgins on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour big gig: ‘Everyone was just totally high’
When Taylor Swift walked onto the stage before 96,000 people at the MCG, fellow singer-songwriter Missy Higgins burst into tears — and she was far from the only one to do so.
When Taylor Swift walked on to the stage at the MCG last Friday, Missy Higgins surprised herself by bursting into tears.
She was far from the only one, of course: the US artist’s entrance was met with something like a tidal wave of pent-up emotion from 96,000 fans in attendance.
But the fact one of Australia’s most decorated and seasoned singer-songwriters was moved to weep at the much-hyped arrival of a fellow musician is another marker of Swift’s remarkable cultural impact.
“I did not expect to be that emotional,” Higgins told The Australian. “I think it was something to do with the fact there was so much love in the room for this person, and you could just feel how many years her music had been with these people, and how important it was to them, and how many pivotal moments in their life that she’d been the soundtrack to.
“It was really big: everyone’s big stories were being sung while she was on stage,” she said. “And you could feel it was a rite of passage for people: there were lots of girls with their mums, and you could tell both of them were going to remember that night forever.”
During her 20 years in the public eye, Higgins has played to plenty of large audiences, including supporting Ed Sheeran on his stadium tour in 2018.
But putting aside the spectacle of Swift’s entrance at The Eras Tour, for what was the biggest headline show she had played anywhere in the world: what about the quality of the concert itself?
“I thought it was just a flawless show, really,” said Higgins, 40. “It was kind of genius that she was going through all her ‘eras’, because she’s really the queen of longevity, and of keeping her audience with her, every time She’s so warm, honest and down to earth that it makes people feel like she’s one of them.”
Since the concert on Friday, Higgins has been inspired to get her voice and hands around some of the Swift’s work: on Instagram on Tuesday, she posted an acoustic cover of Cardigan, the opening track from 2020 album Folklore.
“I’m a real lover of good lyrics, and I’ve been paying a bit more attention to her lyrics since the show, because it made me home in on songs that I wasn’t as aware of beforehand,” she said.
“The magic trick of pop songwriting, in particular, is sometimes it doesn’t sound tricky, and it can sound a bit dumb – but often, the simplest, catchiest pop songs are the hardest ones to write.”
On Friday, Higgins releases a powerful, personal single titled You Should Run, which she wrote in the wake of divorce from her husband, Dan Lee, with whom she has two children.
“For me, songwriting should come from a place of pure selfishness, because that’s when you get to the real truth – and true stuff is what people respond to,” she said.
The new song precedes an album planned for release later this year, while Higgins’s sold-out, 32-concert tour to mark the 20th anniversary of her debut The Sound of White will begin in Frankston on March 28.
Walking out of Swift’s big gig at the MCG, Higgins felt a sense of communal intoxication, which is likely to be mirrored across the US artist’s run of four concerts in Sydney to begin on Friday night.
“Everyone was just totally high off the show,” she said. “The little girls were exhausted because it was way past their bedtime, but they were just beaming up at their mums, and there was this feeling of experiencing something very rare: a mutual ‘core memory’.”
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