Following last year’s attack on Manchester Arena, Taylor Swift has paid tribute to the city of Manchester on the first UK date of her world tour.
In May 2017, 22 people were killed and 139 wounded when a suicide bomber detonated a homemade bomb as people were leaving an Ariana Grande concert at the arena.
The ‘Reputation‘ singer is began the UK leg of her world tour at the city’s Etihad Stadium last night (June 8). She will also perform at the venue tonight (June 9), before visiting Dublin and London. Remaining tickets are available for purchase here.
Swift began her tribute: “Concerts are supposed to be about innocence, and about joy and about excitement, and what happened just over a year ago in this city was an attempt to steal that innocence.”
“Ever since then, you have shown such strength,” she continued. “You’ve shown that you’re never going to let anyone forget about those victims”
“You have such incredible resilience – to keep dancing, and to keep the innocence and to keep the joy.” The singer concluded: “I just wanted to say, Manchester, it is such an honour to play for you tonight.”
Watch the tribute to the city of Manchester below.
@taylorswift13 tribute to #Manchester pic.twitter.com/h3bejtLTSx
— Eddie Shaw (@eddieshaw1) June 8, 2018
The night before the performance in Manchester, fans of Swift were left furious after losing front row seats 48 hours before the star’s Manchester shows.
Reports suggest a number of fans who bought tickets for the Manchester dates received an email from Ticketmaster on Wednesday night (June 6) informing them their seat numbers have changed.
Meanwhile, St. Vincent recently said that the pop rework of ‘MASSEDUCTION’ cut ‘Slow Disco’ was inspired and encouraged by Taylor Swift herself.
“I don’t want to start a weird rumour or anything,” Clark said, “but I swear to God, you know because Jack Antonoff’s bros with Taylor Swift because they work together a lot, and I feel like Taylor was like, ‘You should make this a pop song’.”