The 14-time Grammy winner, who won album of the year at the awards show for1989, celebrated the album’s 10-year anniversary on Sunday, Oct. 27, at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.
“1989 is 10 years old today — a decade of the 1989 album,” Swift said during the acoustic surprise songs segment of the show, where PEOPLE was in attendance. “God, I appreciate you so much for what you turned that album into. I’m always going to be so proud of it.”
“So, I think I should go ahead and play some 1989 songs,” she added before performing a mashup of “How You Get the Girl” and “Clean” for the more than 65,000 people inside the stadium.
Exactly a year before performing the mashup — on Oct. 27, 2023 — Swift notably re-released the album as 1989 (Taylor’s Version) with several previously unheard “From the Vault” songs.
“I was born in 1989, reinvented for the first time in 2014, and a part of me was reclaimed in 2023 with the re-release of this album I love so dearly,” Swift, 34, wrote on Instagram at the time. “Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine the magic would you sprinkle on my life for so long.”
“This moment is a reflection of the woods we’ve wandered through and all this love between us still glowing in the darkest dark. I present to you, with gratitude and wild wonder, my version of 1989. It’s been waiting for you. Taylor,” she concluded in her handwritten note to Swifties.
The “Blank Space” singer had previously announced the re-release of her fifth studio album at her Los Angeles Eras Tour show on Aug. 9, 2023. It included re-recordings of the original 16 tracks and five additional songs, including new Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper “Is It Over Now?”
When 1989 won album of the year at the 2016 Grammys, Swift became the first female artist to win the honor twice. Since then, Swift has won AOTY two more times with 2020’s folklore and 2022’s Midnights.
At the time, the “Out of the Woods” singer discussed female empowerment in her AOTY acceptance speech: “There are going to be people along the way who will try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame,” Swift said.
She added, “But if you just focus on the work and you don’t let those people sidetrack you, someday when you get where you’re going, you will know it was you and the people who love you who put you there, and that will be the greatest feeling in the world.”
Taylor Swift performs onstage during “Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour” at SoFi Stadium
Sunday’s 1989 mashup performance came one day after Swift included “Is It Over Now?” as part of a surprise duet mashup with Sabrina Carpenter.
Together, they sang “Espresso,” “Is It Over Now?” and ”Please Please Please” — with Carpenter’s caffeine-infused track blending nicely with Swift’s “Let’s fast forward to three hundred takeout coffees later” lyric.
As part of every Eras Tour stop, Swift also performs a dedicated high-energy 1989 section as the show’s seventh act, which includes “Style,” “Blank Space,” “Shake It Off,” “Wildest Dreams” and “Bad Blood.”
Swift’s 152-show Eras Tour, which started in March 2023, will end in December after 12 more shows in Indianapolis, Toronto and Vancouver.
