Many Swifties profess to know every Taylor Swift song performed during the 3½-hour shows on the Eras Tour — but Chelsea Biehl, 21, actually does.
Biehl gained thousands of followers on TikTok after she performed the entire set list live from her living room in Irwin, Pennsylvania, on Aug. 11. The performance, which her online following is calling the “Living Room Eras Tour,” reached an audience of over 500,000 people throughout the night.
Fellow Swifites online inspired the decision — one of her followers had commented on a previous video cover she had posted of a Swift song: “This is the only Eras Tour I can afford.” Another person suggested she re-create the whole tour in a comment on the same video.
“Me and my mom were like, ‘That’s actually a pretty cool idea; I wonder if we can make it happen.’ So we decided to try to put it together, and then we did it,” said Biehl, who described herself as one of the “very lucky” Swifties who got to see the Eras Tour in person.
“It was an amazing experience, and that’s actually part of why I wanted to do this,” said Biehl, who now has 15,400 followers. “I knew that so many people didn’t get that chance. I know it’s not the same, but if me doing my version in my living room can give people just a little bit of that experience … maybe that will brighten their day.”
Her version of the Eras Tour was a group effort involving of her six family members and four friends; her father and one of her brothers handled sound and lighting cues tailored to each album aesthetic, another brother danced “onstage” with her, a family friend played guitar, her mom helped her with quick costume changes, and her best friend, Amber Caldwell, 21, was the show’s opener.
Biehl and her group performed 46 songs, spanning nine of Swift’s albums. Using a combination of karaoke tracks and live accompaniment, she performed the permanent set list, as well as an acoustic set of two “surprise songs” from Swift’s discography and two of her own original songs.
I know it’s not the same, but if me doing my version in my living room can give people just a little bit of that experience … maybe that will brighten their day.
— chelsea Biehl on her own eras tour concert
The hardest part of re-creating the show, Biehl said, was coordinating everyone’s schedules to learn choreography.
“We all tried to go off of our knowledge of what we had seen in the videos as best as we could and tried to put it together,” she said.
Biehl’s nerves were high before the performances — as a Swiftie, she said, she knows the fan base is notoriously protective of its favorite artist.
“People are either going to think that it is really, really cool,” she said, “or really, really stupid.”
Luckily, one of Biehl’s online friends volunteered to help moderate the comments section during the livestream, answering fan questions and looking out for hate comments.
“I’ve had some people say some stuff that’s not OK, and they do it over and over,” Biehl said.
Still, the response has been overwhelmingly positive, she said.
Some viewers have even nicknamed her “Chelsea Swift.” Many have commented on her other videos to tag “Taylor Swift” and “Taylor Nation,” Swift’s official management team, to help draw attention to her.
“I was front row!” a Swiftie commented. Another fan said Biehl’s performance helped her deal with the “drought” of Eras Tour content now that Swift is between legs of the tour.
“Eras Tour Living Room N1 was epic! Thank you, Chelsea Swift for putting on a 3.5 hour show for us,” another creator wrote in the caption of a screen recording of the live show posted to TikTok.
A TikTok creator posted a video reacting to Biehl’s performance as if it were a recap of the actual Eras Tour.
So far, no word from Swift herself — but Biehl’s still living out her wildest dreams. She and her family held another performance of their tour on TikTok on Friday.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
