This past weekend, Taylor Swift took to Glendale, Arizona (now formerly known as Swift City) to launch The Eras Tour with a pair of concerts. Uproxx’s Philip Cosores was there for the first one and called it “the most impressive stadium show ever conceived,” and indeed, the March 17 and 18 concerts were grand. Both featured massive 44-song setlists, and given how active Swift is on stage, giving her all for a 3-hour show like that has to be physically demanding. That’s something even JJ Watt, one of the world’s most accomplished athletes, acknowledged and was stunned by.
The now-retired NFL star was so blown away by the Swift show he saw on the 18th that he was compelled to share a two-and-a-half-minute video talking about it. He captioned his post, “44 Songs. 3 Hours and 15 Minutes. So much respect @taylorswift13. When your fans pay for a ticket, they are getting their money’s worth and some. Touché.”
44 Songs.
3 Hours and 15 Minutes.So much respect @taylorswift13
When your fans pay for a ticket, they are getting their money’s worth and some.
Touché. #TSTheErasTour pic.twitter.com/bgtVz0EzlB
— JJ Watt (@JJWatt) March 19, 2023
In the video, he explains that he, his wife, and some of her friends went to the show, and that Watt had some observations he wanted to relay. His first was just general amazement, saying, “You can tell when somebody does something at the top of their game and is trying to do [it] the right way for their fans, and this is done the right way for the people paying money to come and see her. Just unbelievable production.”
He then addressed the lengthy nature of the show and indicated how blown away he was by her stamina, saying, “It was 44 songs, 3 hours and 15 minutes long, and she did not stop the whole time. There was no intermission, there was no halftime, there was no TV timeouts. The longest break she took was maybe three minutes for a costume change, and she was singing, dancing, entertaining the entire time, 70,000 people hanging on every single word and move she was making for 3 hours and 15 minutes, and she crushed it. And she didn’t even look tired. I was tired, and I was just sitting there.”
He later added, “Everybody else got a break. The dancers got a break, the band got a break… she never took a break. It was… it was thoroughly impressive.”
Watt also made note of how passionate all the Swifties in attendance were (and flashed some merch he got at the show to indicate he’s also on that “Swiftie life” now).
Watch Watt’s video above.