A “Karma” Lyric Change, a Kiss, and a Surprise Song Mash-Up: Breaking Down Every Moment From Taylor Swift’s Weekend in Buenos Aires

Last Saturday night, around the time Taylor Swift took the stage for her concert in Argentina, I was sitting down for dinner at a sceney Italian place on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. I was there by the grace of a well-timed Resy notification and not because I know that Swift had dined there with Zoë Kravitz in September, though that didn’t exactly hurt. I ordered a cosmo because she ordered a cosmo, and the host gamely quipped that “Taylor’s not in tonight.” Next to me on the banquette, my phone glowed with updates from Swift’s concert in Argentina: original Lover bodysuit tonight … OMG Travis is with her dad! … the mashup! … LYRIC CHANGE ASDLKFJSDLKFJSDLKFJSDLK!!!

Swift, the most watched woman in the world, is currently on two separate tours. There is The Eras Tour, her sold-out blockbuster concert extravaganza that is not even half done as she has begun making her way around the world. Then there is her recent excursioning–to dinners (so many dinners!), to Bradley Cooper’s house, to Missouri, even. That display of Swift simply living her life in public has become an almost equally consumable spectacle.

Last weekend, the two collided like never before. By the end of Saturday night, I was at a birthday party, with bad cell service, standing in a corner and refreshing TikTok with unreasonable intensity to see additional angles of Swift running toward and kissing her new beau, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, who had traveled to Argentina on his off weekend from football and watched the second of Swift’s three shows from the VIP tent with her dad. That long weekend in Buenos Aires will go down as one of the most truly chaotic stretches in Swiftie history, the approximate timeline of which I have attempted to catalog below for posterity.

Thursday, November 9

8:45 p.m. ART—Swift takes the stage as The Eras Tour restarts after more than two months off. There are new outfits! Swift has an all-pink bodysuit for the Lover section of the set and a hot-pink blazer she wears during “The Man.” The original blue, purple, and pink bodysuit is still my favorite, but this new one is fun and very Barbiecore. She seems happy and lovey-dovey, not like she’s disassociating during this romantic section, which it kind of seemed like she was doing early in the tour after she and what’s his face broke up.

9:45 p.m. ART—She messes up a few notes during her performance of “Champagne Problems” and is a real silly goose about it. Errors Tour forever.

11:35 p.m. ART—Swift performs “Labyrinth” as one of the surprise songs. Hearing her sing the lyrics “Uh-oh, I’m falling in love” makes me feel things! Taylor, we know what you’re doing!

Friday, November 10

11 a.m. EST—Swift is nominated for six Grammy Awards for her work on the 2022 album Midnights, including Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best Pop Vocal Album. Somehow this is, like, the eighth-biggest deal of the weekend.

2 p.m. ART—Travis Kelce touches down in Argentina after taking a red-eye flight from Kansas City.

4:50 p.m. ART—With Buenos Aires being pounded by extreme weather, Swift announces that she’s postponing that night’s show until Sunday out of safety concerns. This was necessary and responsible but also: MAKE WAY FOR COZY TIME!!!

Sometime that evening—Kelce, Swift, and her father, Scott Swift, make their way through Elena, an Argentinian steak house at the Four Seasons Buenos Aires, to a private room for dinner. Swift is wearing what is, for her, a classic ensemble of a tan plaid skirt, black top, and boots. Travis is wearing a bad shirt but looks very happy, and the two of them are holding hands. Everyone at the restaurant cheers as they walk past. I can’t find a reliable time stamp for when exactly they ate, but Swift seems nocturnal, so I’d guess it was on the later side.

Saturday, November 11

10:45 a.m. EST—“Applause” by Lady Gaga is featured on the playlist at my SoulCycle class, which I am thrilled about. On behalf of bland straight people everywhere, I’m sorry it took the Eras Tour warm-up playlist for us to fully appreciate this song.

8:40 p.m. ART—Swift goes on for her second show of the weekend. Travis is in the audience!!! He is wearing another bad shirt, but HE IS IN THE VIP TENT NEXT TO SCOTT SWIFT, WHO IS WEARING HIS VIP PASS ON A KANSAS CITY CHIEFS LANYARD!!! Scott Swift is a stockbroker from Pennsylvania whose canonical moment in the fandom is when he compared his daughter’s career to Bob Hope’s, so I’m going to venture a guess that he’s fairly pumped to be talking ball with an NFL player instead of discussing the last guy’s collection of vintage lighters. (I think of Andrea Swift’s delivery of “Honey, what the hell” after the Bob Hope moment in Miss Americana multiple times a day.)

9:05 p.m. ART—As Swift performs “The Archer,” Kelce holds up a sign that says “We Will Stay,” taking part in a fan campaign. “The Archer” is a song about the loneliness of fame, and the signs are meant to tell Swift that she is never alone! I am a puddle of goo, as is, by this point, the internet. Swift also looks mushy and gushy and keeps looking at Travis. Maybe she will give him the “22” hat. It’s not polite to presume, but also, their babies will grow to be so tall.

10:05 p.m. ART—The light purple “Enchanted” dress is still so big. I want to know how much scaffolding is involved. Does it get its own truck?

10:15 p.m. ART—Travis Kelce does not get the “22” hat.

11:25 p.m. ART—It’s Surprise Song O’Clock. Swift starts on guitar with the 1989 (Taylor’s Version) vault track “Is It Over Now?,” a song about being in a situationship with Harry Styles. Midway through, she makes this face (bottom right):

Real Swifties know this face is not to be ignored. She is fucking up to something. Taylor Swift is many things to many people, but above all else Taylor Swift is scheming, because she will never let me have a moment’s rest. She breaks into the bridge of “Out of the Woods,” a song about being in a situationship with Harry Styles but this time in metaphor. Everyone is screaming. This concert is officially absurd. I wonder whether Travis knows the theory about Taylor and Harry committing vehicular manslaughter together.

11:29 p.m. ART—I have moved on to wondering whether Travis is into snowmobiling when it’s time for the second surprise song, and it’s “End Game”! Get it! Like a football game! But also being together 4ever! She wants to be *his* end game, she wants to be *his* first string! During the song, the light-up bracelets flash red and yellow, which are the Chiefs’ colors! Their wedding would be fun. I want to see Jason Kelce and Sophie Turner interact, and also this:

Sidenote: This song was so fun done acoustic! Biiiig reputation, biiiig reputation, oooooooh!

11:49 p.m. ART—Taylor does her sexy chair dance to “Vigilante Shit.” Kelce and Scott Swift do not make eye contact. I am GIDDY.

11:59 p.m. ART—Up until this exact moment, karma has been many things: a queen, a god, a cat. It takes all my friends to the summit, which should also make it some kind of funicular? Or, like, private transport to Davos? I’m not exactly sure, but what I am certain of now is that KARMA IS THE GUY ON THE CHIEFS, which I know because SHE CHANGED THE LYRIC TO SAY SO. I am freaking out. The dancers are freaking out but still doing choreo because they are *professionals*. Travis is also freaking out, which makes more sense, because Taylor Swift just changed a lyric onstage at The Eras Tour to be about him. He is agog. He is holding his face in his hands. He can’t believe it, but it’s true. Or, as Ice Spice would say: facts. Scott Swift seems to have known this was coming because he was ready for it and tried to go for a high five, but Travis didn’t see it, LOL. He is so golden retriever boyfriend and she is so emotional support pop star right now. Scott Swift is filming everything, which is also funny.

12:03 a.m. ART—Scott Swift leads Travis Kelce like a toddler to the side-stage area, where Taylor will come out to greet them.

12:04 a.m. ART—Taylor emerges. She is waving to the remaining crowd. When she sees Travis, she breaks into a little run toward him and jumps into his arms. And then … THEY GIVE US A SMOOCH! It’s honestly kind of a full-on make-out sesh. Something that ends up being a very specific turn-on to every woman I’ve spoken to about this is that Travis keeps his hands behind his back until the very moment Taylor initiates physical touch. I leave the birthday party conspicuously early to go home and watch dozens of angles of this, and also because cosmos are strong.

Sunday, November 12

Noon EST—“Karma” jumps from 199th to 15th on the iTunes singles chart between Saturday and Sunday. All because Taylor was ~flirting~.

11:30 p.m. ART—No one is over last night except for Taylor, who is back on her bullshit during the surprise song set. This is the makeup show for the one that got rained out two nights earlier. That show would have taken place on the sixth anniversary of the release of Reputation, so the crowd thinks she might announce Reputation (Taylor’s Version), perhaps because she’s hinted at it like 13 million times. They start chanting, “Reputation! Reputation!” Swift brings back the smirk. She does not announce Reputation (Taylor’s Version) but very cheekily performs “Better Than Revenge,” which allows her to chastise the audience with the opening lyric, “Now go stand in the corner and think about what you did!” She is so unserious. The other surprise song is “Slut!”

12:15 a.m. ART—The show is over, and Swift immediately goes to the airport. According to Page Six, she does not even stop to change out of her sparkly leotard. This is weird, but honestly not as weird as when she wore jean shorts for a flight in Miss Americana. I refuse to believe that anyone, even Taylor Swift on a private plane, wants to press their bare thighs into their seat while they pick a denim wedgie at 35,000 feet.

Monday, November 13

2:36 a.m. EST—Eduardo Paes, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the next stop on The Eras Tour, responds to a fan on X that he’ll ask about getting the “Junior Jewels” T-shirt from Swift’s “You Belong With Me” music video projected onto the Christ the Redeemer statue, one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, in advance of the concerts. He says he’ll “ask dear Father Omar,” the guy who “runs the projections” for the statue, “if we can get this honor.” Omar replied in a story saying they would “await contact from the singer’s advisors.” And what I would give to see Ms. Tree Paine the moment that request hit her inbox. Obviously, this whole thing has jumped the shark. One minute you’re young, connecting with the storytelling of a precocious girl who didn’t quite fit in, and the next minute you’re mounting a coordinated lobbying effort that seems in danger only because Father Omar follows Ariana Grande on Instagram.

That said, I think we all really need to see Jesus (Taylor’s Version).

That evening—Taylor puts on one of her many pairs of patent loafers and goes to dinner at Freeman’s with Gracie Abrams, because she is apparently making her way through an Infatuation list from 2014.

And then, everyone found Killatrav’s old tweets. #schmackin.