After the TicketMaster war, after the ability to afford tickets became questionable, after complications with our hotel room, after the rain threatened to cancel the concert, my best friend and I had one of the best nights of our lives this past Sunday at Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.

According to Billboard, the Eras Tour has been recognized as the future highest grossing tour in U.S. history. As of right now, Swift still holds the top spot for her Reputation tour in 2017, but that is expected to change after the current tour ends.

Most know what happened with the whole TicketMaster debacle: the entire system crashed and thousands of fans were unable to get tickets to the tour.

Many were upset, me included. My friends and I all had tickets in one cart, ready to buy. The minute my friend’s mom took out her card to pay for it, they were taken away and given to someone else.

Not only did that crush our hearts, but we also couldn’t find anyone that was selling any tickets.

But that changed when me and Maddox Karnes were on the bus to a Journalism competition when our one and only lord and savior Ms. Veda Kommineni offered us two extra tickets.

We immediately said yes and that was it. We were ready to go have the greatest night in Nashville, Tennessee. Until we weren’t.

Money was tight at one point, and we were afraid that we wouldn’t be able to afford it. However, after figuring out a way to scramble it all together, we found ourselves packing our bags and in the car for the four hour trip.

Once we finally arrived at the hotel we were going to stay in, the staff informed us that our room was not ready and wouldn’t be for a while.

We waited around for about 45 minutes until we had enough. Maddox and I got ready in the community bathroom of the hotel. We were not happy to do so, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

The complications were not over yet, though. It was 20 minutes into the drive when it started pouring down rain to the point where we couldn’t even see the road.

Once we arrived at the stadium, the rain had lightened and we made our way to our seats. After standing still in a crazy crowd and walking what felt like miles in heels, we found them.

But, surprise surprise, the day was not working in our favor. It had begun pouring rain once again, this time with lightning and thunder. We had to evacuate the stadium, and sit on the cold, wet ground for five hours.

While everyone was singing songs and playing games, we were all afraid that the concert would be canceled. I remember turning to Maddox and saying “If Taylor cancels on us, I will jump off the side of this building right now.” Now calm down, I wasn’t actually going to, but I definitely would’ve been extremely upset.

After hours of my legs falling asleep and my butt hurting from the hard concrete, the stadium staff announced that we were allowed to make our way to our seats for the concert was going to begin.

Everyone was ecstatic that Swift wasn’t canceling or shortening the set list, so you can imagine the cheers that echoed in the stadium.

So, until about 1:30 in the morning, Maddox and I screamed bridges and danced to all of Swift’s songs from each Era throughout her career. I have never cried so much in my entire life.

She began with her Lover album, and not following any particular order, ended with her newest album Midnights. She didn’t sing every single song from her discography, although I would’ve stayed for every minute of it, but she included a few songs from each era.

In total, she played approximately 44 songs, which made the concert a total of three hours long.

Despite the very late starting time and the longest setlist I’ve ever seen at a concert, fans enjoyed the rainy night for what it was.

My only critique is that I would’ve liked to hear more from her Speak Now album, for she only played “Enchanted” and moved onto the next era. However, I assume she’ll play more once her Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) releases on July 7.

We got a little bit more of Speak Now, though, because one of our surprise songs was “Mine,” which is from the album. 

Each concert, Swift performs two surprise songs for the audience. A few of my favorite songs that have been used already are “mirrorball,” “this is me trying,” “Clean” and “Death By A Thousand Cuts.”

But it’s okay, because Swift surprised my show with my favorite song off of Midnights (3am Edition), “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve.”

The song is about looking at your past self and wishing you could warn them about what’s to come. It’s an emotional but powerful message written by Swift and Aaron Dessner.

Overall, I think it’s been one of my favorite concerts I attended. We ended up wearing trash bags as ponchos to keep the pouring rain from ruining our night. It was such a blast, and I would do it all over again if I could.