Florence Welch reflects on “terrifying” ‘Eras Tour’ duet with Taylor Swift

Florence Welch has reflected on the “terrifying” experience of joining Taylor Swift on stage at the ‘Eras Tour’ in Swift’s new docuseries.

• READ MORE: ‘Taylor Swift: The End Of An Era’ review: tears over terrorist plot reveal emotional weight of stardom

The Florence + the Machine leader appears in Swift’s new Disney+ six-part series, Taylor Swift: The End Of An Era, which debuted with its first two episodes on Friday (December 12), with further instalments set to arrive in pairs on December 19 and 26.

The show chronicles Swift’s record-smashing 149-date tour, which launched in March 2023 and concluded with a show in Vancouver last December, grossing over $2billion through ticket sales.

Welch is part of episode two, with footage of her preparing to join Swift on stage for a surprise performance of ‘Florida!!’ in London, during the tour’s final night at Wembley Stadium in August 2024.

The behind-the-scenes rehearsal footage shows Welch learning the choreography with Swift and her dancers, and using the stage lift for the first time. She also appears as a talking head discussing her reflections on the appearance.

“I have performed on big stages, but I thought I’d just run around because that’s what I do at my own shows,” Welch says in the documentary. “When I got there, they were like, ‘This is your choreography.’ I was like, ‘No, no, no, wait, you must be confused. I don’t do this! I’m gonna fuck this up!’”

She went on to say: “The feeling of coming up for the first time in that lift, it was kind of like landing on Mars, ‘cause I’d never seen the stage lit up before.

“It’s like, you see this cultural moment from the outside, and I suddenly was inside of it,” she continued. “It was wild, but it was really fun and completely terrifying.”

Welch also admitted that seeing Swift in this environment was confusing, saying: “Taylor is my friend, and I know her as this very cosy person, and I came out of that lift and I was like, ‘Oh my God, it’s fucking Taylor Swift!’”

Welch recently spoke about the experience of joining Swift on stage, saying she “decided to make some changes” afterwards.

Her comments came after she opened up about working with Swift on ‘Florida!!!’, saying: “I almost didn’t think of the scale of it.”

“There’s the sort of bigness of [Taylor Swift the phenomenon], and then there’s the Taylor I spend time with in the studio, who is just the sweetest and most down to earth,” she explained. “We had such a fun time. And then when it came out I was like, ‘Oh, shit!’”

Also released on Friday was Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour – The Final Show, a concert film made up of the entire ‘Tortured Poets Department’ set from the final Vancouver show.

In a three-star review of the series, NME wrote: “There’s a great documentary to be made about The Eras Tour, but it’s probably an unofficial one exploring the unique sense of community it fostered among the singer’s fanbase. “It’s like Woodstock without the drugs,” one commentator notes here, entirely without shade. For now, though, The End Of An Era is solid content for Swifties wanting to relive the tour’s huge collective dopamine hit.”

In other news, Florence + The Machine recently released their new album ‘Everybody Scream’, which was met with a glowing, five-star review from NME, which described the project as “a tempestuous record, one that stays with you longer than the rage and anguish which, here, is as fleeting, yet deeply magical, as the changing seasons”

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