Since the Eras Tour wrapped up in December, Taylor Swift has been taking some much-needed time off. Though she’s made a few public appearances, including at the Grammys and the Super Bowl, she hasn’t publicly performed in the six months since the tour. But they don’t call her the queen of the WAGs for nothing — on Tuesday night, Swift strapped her guitar back on for an intimate performance at her boyfriend’s benefit concert.
Swift made a surprise appearance at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl — a 1,200-person venue — where Travis Kelce was throwing a “Tight Ends and Friends” concert as a fundraiser for his NFL training camp, Tight End University. After a performance by country singer Kane Brown, Swift took the stage to play “Shake It Off,” which she dedicated to “our favorite players who are going to play, and these are the tight ends.”
It sounds like it was a pretty impromptu performance — afterward, Swift thanked the band, who she said had “just figured out that we were going to play that three minutes ago.” Brown, who played tambourine while she sang, posted a pic with Swift and Kelce on Instagram afterward. “When you think you’re the special guest BUT you’re not,” he captioned it.
Naturally, seeing Swift perform on an acoustic guitar … and with a country band … and at a tiny venue in Nashville got fans’ Spidey senses tingling a bit. After announcing she’d bought back her masters last month, Swift said she’d already rerecorded her debut album — famously a country-leaning, acoustics-heavy installment — and a performance like this suggests Taylor Swift (Taylor’s Version) may really be on its way. Until then, we’ll be polishing up our cowboy boots.