I’m A Middle Age Jam Band Fan Who Went To Both Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter Tour And Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour—Here’s What Blew My Mind About Both

So here’s the deal: I’m a middle-aged white jam band fan, complete with an IPA gut and a sixth sense for finding the best garlic grilled cheese in any stadium or amphitheater parking lot.

Need proof? Look at that picture above, directly ripped from my Instagram post after going to the third show of Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter tour. I’m not afraid to admit that it screams “this guy is having a mid-life crisis over his own mediocrity.” I get it.

I don’t know a lot about anything, but I know Shakedown Street. It’s a roving hippie bazaar that started at Grateful Dead shows and still thrives on the jam band circuit today. For the uninitiated stumbling across this essay because Taylor Swift or Beyoncé are mentioned, Shakedown—named after a Dead song that pretty much demands you dance—is a weird and wonderful pop-up marketplace. You can buy a veggie burrito, a hand-sketched T-shirt, a bundle of moonstones to realign your chakras, and maybe a little enlightenment if the mushrooms hit just right.

The thing about living in that world is, you develop a deep appreciation for musical curiosity. You chase the weird, the unexpected, the moments that crack something open that you want to talk about with other fans.

So when I went to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Tour—both at SoFi Stadium, both with my equally musically curious fiancée—I wasn’t looking to crown a pop queen. I just wanted to chase that same spark. I wanted to see what happens when music and identity go stadium-sized. I wanted to feel the cultural thunderclap, join up with the circus for the night, and experience the spectacle.

And maybe, selfishly, I just wanted to see what it all said about us, as creatures. What we love and remember, and how music reflects us back to ourselves.

Plus, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, have a whole hell of a lot of fun!

What can I say? I love a good party.

First, let’s get one thing clear: This essay isn’t about pitting Swift against Beyoncé. Both artists have crafted epic cultural monuments in their respective tours. Taylor’s Eras Tour is officially historic, grossing north of $2 billion and making her the highest-earning female musician in history.

Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter album, meanwhile, felt like witnessing an entire culture shift in real-time, reclaiming Americana through a distinctly Black lens. It’s art on the highest pedestal, intentionally genre-blurring and reflective about how we still insist on neatly-organizing culture in America based on strict genre-lines and some toxic shit in our past. It’s about perception, identity, and how preconceived notions about what is or isn’t country. As the saying goes, it’s not a country album, it’s a Beyoncé album, and this tour is the chance to experience that.  

---

Look, music has always been how I make sense of the world.

I’d like to think I’m musically omnivorous. My parents were public school music teachers, I grew up playing everything, hosted a college radio show with my brother, and met my fiancée at a Phish show. I’ve chased 100+ jam-band concerts (…to establish some pathos here as your writer, I listed off every single one I went to last year on my personal website) and probably have the tinnitus to prove it. If there’s a deeper meaning hiding inside a song, I want to find it.

You get the gist: I love being immersed in musical worlds, and music is how I understand the world.

So when my coworker Cass hit me with the Slack message on Monday morning—”How’d Beyoncé compare to Eras Tour?”—I knew the experience deserved a deeper dive. And then my post on Threads took off, racking up over 400,000 views in a couple of days, mostly because of the mass hyper-curiosity of Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter tour. And now here we are!

One quick note for context, because I think the setting is important: I saw both of these shows at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, which—full disclosure—is one of my favorite venues on the planet for this kind of massive show. It’s state-of-the-art, sleek as hell, like a spaceship, and somehow sounds incredible no matter where you’re sitting.  It’s futuristic yet practical, peak California excellence. Plus, I live 20 minutes away! When Hard Summer hit last year, it rattled my windows and fired up the local NIMBY Facebook groups with outrage… which only made me love it more. There’s something magical about watching Beyoncé ride a mechanical bull or Taylor Swift dive headfirst into the witching woods of the evermore era… and then being back in your own bed after a short drive home. That’s the dream, isn’t it?

I saw the Eras Tour during the final SoFi run that was filmed for the concert movie. By then, Swifties knew every cue and costume change like clockwork.

Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter show, on the other hand, was the third stop on her tour. It was locked in, the BeyHive was buzzing, but the energy of the tour just kicking off was still very fresh.

The fans and pedestrians like myself were still digesting the tour and its story arcs and narratives, including some headlines on this site about it being undersold (though I don’t think it was, my night was packed, btw, and ticket prices seem to be spiking as word gets out about how damn good it is) and a legal-threat from Vegas Sphere owner James Dolan.

Alas, I walked into my very first Beyoncé show totally unspoiled. I only listened to the Cowboy Carter a handful of times since its release last year. I had seen her once before, at Super Bowl 50 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara back in 2016. Thanks to my job at this website, I was in the nosebleeds for the Big Game as a guest of a big beer company, and the sound was underwhelming. While the televised performance looked incredible, the experience of watching a made-for-TV show in a stadium during halftime was pretty meh.

I didn’t know every song by heart, but I had a hunch the Cowboy Carter tour was going to be a big deal. The buzz around the tour was building fast, and it felt like the kind of show you didn’t want to miss. I’m glad my fiancée and her friend from college invited me to go!

So anyway, here’s my POV on how these two musical worlds collided, from my perspective in SoFi stadium as a middle-aged jam band guy who watched both shows with a Modelo in hand, as is tradition.

Hanging with the Swifties vs. BeyHive

Taylor’s crowd felt like one massive campfire sing-along, with friendship bracelets passing like joints of banana kush at a Grateful Dead cover band show (Though let’s be honest—my bracelet-trading credibility was probably tanked by my middle-aged beard, or my own shy, self-sabotaging self-consciousness. Still, I proudly repped one in Philadelphia Eagles colors as a nod to my and Taylor’s Pennsylvania roots.) The overall buzz before the show reminded me of a jam band crowd, where the mystique centers on one big question: What’s she going to play for the secret song? There was anticipation, suspense, and a shared sense of reveal. I thought that was cool. Taylor Swift is really, really good at building up tension with mystique.

Despite the reputation Swifties sometimes have online for being a little intense, I personally didn’t experience any of that. I got the same vibe from the crowd that I would get as a kid going to sleepaway camp in the summer. A little nervousness, but also excitement. “What’s Mother going to do tonight?!” energy.

Artistically, the show felt more like a perfectly executed, glammed-up Broadway show mixed with the cozy hush of a jazz club in the Roaring Twenties. Or the same feeling I got in my Romantic Literature class at Penn State when we read Lord Byron and Percy Shelly. It wasn’t really a let’s party energy, more a let’s witness something bigger than ourselves energy. Very sublime, in the most pure way that word is used.

Beyoncé’s BeyHive, by contrast, came in hot with Sunday gospel warmth and full-blown Coachella swagger. And the fits—my God, the fits! I’ve been to CMA Fest in Nashville, I’ve done rodeos in Texas, and I’ve never seen this many people confidently strutting around in full leather chaps. But at Beyoncé? Chaps were out in force. So many chaps! Jorts, boots, booty. Think Stagecoach, with more neon. It was a full-blown rhinestone rodeo, and the mood was electric. I thought it was awesome to see the Beyhive and plenty of casual randoms reclaiming cowboy culture on their own terms, owning an aesthetic that’s historically been gatekept by white narratives.

And everyone I met was kind as hell.

Nostalgia vs. Reclamation

Growing up as a teenager, and then a young adult, and then as a not-so-young-adult-still-figuring-it-out with a favorite artist is a deeply powerful cultural device.

Plenty of moms who listened to Taylor Swift in high school now share her music with their own kids. Same goes for Beyoncé. This happens all the time in the Phish world too: college lacrosse players who were tripping on acid with their teammates at the Great Went in 1998 are now sharing this musical world with their teenage kids, who probably also maybe play lacrosse.

Sharing the music that soundtracked your glory days, got you through breakups, big moments, and everything in between with the most special people in your life is a magical thing.

In that way, Taylor’s Eras Tour was pure nostalgia, though, as I understand it, some of the lore is newly minted nostalgia. It was a flawlessly choreographed DeLorean ride through her discography. Each era flowed into the next like flipping through a beloved photo album. It was a greatest hits showcase, sure, but the great thing about that is how it gives fans a moment to pause and reflect on how her songs became emotional timestamps. It’s powerful stuff, watching people relive the soundtracks to their own coming-of-age stories, all in one stadium-wide sing-along.

Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Tour was only slightly nostalgic. At its core, it was a celebration of cultural reclamation. The intention was genre-blurring, myth-busting, and defiantly original, just like the statement of the Cowboy Carter project itself. Early in the show, during her cover of Paul McCartney’s “BLACKBIIRD”—a song inspired by the Little Rock Nine’s bravery during school integration in 1957—the screens lit up with tributes to Black country artists. Some of them, like Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Willie Jones, and Reyna Roberts, are featured on the album version of the track. Their presence underscored the show’s mission: to spotlight voices reshaping the genre today, but also not apologize for being a musical lane Beyoncé and, frankly, any artist, has earned every right to be in. Spoken-word segments from Linda Martell, the first Black woman to perform at the Grand Ole Opry, added even more historical weight and meditation for the evening.

The whole show felt like a Beyoncé-built version of the Grand Ole Opry by way of Hee Haw and the spectacle of the Houston rodeo. Think: mechanical bulls, a piano set on fire, gold-plated Mack trucks, a robot that dances and pours SirDavis whiskey cocktails, western iconography turned inside out.

Cowboy Carter honored the past and history without being completely obsessed with it as the core focus. As a result, it presented something wildly new and original. It was a full-scale reimagining of Americana.

The slogan flashing on screen said it all: Never ask permission for something that already belongs to you.

Bet. That’s good advice to chew on.

Let’s talk about the setlists…

It’s taken me a couple of days, but I’ve been thinking about a frame of thought for each tour. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

The Eras Tour was a summer camp energy mixed with a Broadway show. I freakin’ love Broadway shows!

Cowboy Carter is a honkytonk. More rowdy without being unhinged in all the right ways, with moments of reverence. I freakin’ love honkytonks too!

Taylor’s setlist was Broadway-level in its precision. Each era unfolded like a scene in a musical. There’s acting, stage drama (IE, “Tolerate It” from the evermore set where a relationship appears to unwind in front of the audience’s eyes), with costume changes, choreography, and mood lighting all cued up to the second.

These segues happened in Beyonce’s show too, but given the concept of the Eras Tour, they were a little more defined as acts. It was a meticulously planned time machine, guiding fans from Fearless to Midnights with emotional continuity and cinematic flair. Even the surprise songs had a structure, giving fans that “what’s it gonna be tonight?” thrill without breaking the overall rhythm.

Beyoncé’s setlist, on the other hand, felt like a living, breathing mixtape. It opened with the idea of Cowboy Carter and never looked back. Chronology didn’t matter. Sure, there was a quick greatest hits medley in Act V with “Crazy in Love,” “Single Ladies,” “Love On Top,” and “Irreplaceable.” But the real focus was the vibe, the intent, the subtext, undertone, and overall statement of the project. It was fluid, conceptual, and, honestly, more of a dance party than a traditional concert.

Which rocked!

Don’t get me wrong, I still “shook it off” at the Eras Tour. But Beyoncé’s show came in hot and stayed there.

I expected a few slower moments to catch my breath. They were rare. And when they arrived, they stood out in a big way. “PROTECTOR”, featuring Blue Ivy and Rumi, was one of those warm, grounding moments that made the whole stadium collectively go soft.

Later, during “DAUGHTER,” Beyoncé reminded everyone that her vocal range might just be in the upper echelon of human achievement. Operatic, a true mezzo-soprano songstress. You know when a note is so pure and controlled that it gives you goosebumps? That was “DAUGHTER.” The crowd went pin-drop silent. No dancing, just a wonderful Beyoncé moment of raw, awesome talent.

But mostly, she didn’t pause to explain anything, besides the setup to “BLACKBIIRD.” She performed relentlessly and joyfully. As expected for someone of her mythos at the top of the cultural pyramid, with the command of someone who knows she’s the best at what she does.

I like that. Let the work speak.

The moment that set the tone for the whole show came right at the start.

The third song was her take on “The Star-Spangled Banner.” But not the solemn, reverent version we all grew up with at high school football games. There was no nod to the military-industrial complex… or was there? This was straight-up Hendrix-at-Woodstock energy. It was distorted, kinetic, and kind of psychedelic. The kind of version that makes you want to move, not stand at attention.

And nobody in the crowd knew what to do. I sure didn’t! I’m a middle-aged white guy who grew up in post-9/11 America, where “U-S-A” chants were baked into every NFL Sunday for almost a decade during the height of the Global War on Terror. You could feel the confusion ripple across the stadium. Do we stand? Do we sing? Do we just… sit and take all this in? People were halfway out of their seats, caught in that shared awkward space between habit and curiosity.

Then the beat dropped. The anthem bled into rhythm. The lights hit. And just like that, a dance party broke out. The tension snapped. The crowd exhaled. Beyoncé wasn’t asking us to perform patriotism. Nah. She was asking us to move through the complicated, inherited weight of it.

Feel it, reclaim it, remix it.

That’s the American Dream, right? Life, liberty, and the pursuit of whatever gets your body moving.

That energy never let up. Cowboy Carter bridged the past and the present, then it chewed them up and spit out something brand new. Tracks like “SPAGHETTII,” “MY HOUSE,” “TYRANT,” and “TEXAS HOLD ’EM” hit with swagger. And the Linda Martell imagery and interludes gave structure and weight to the momentum, along with historic visuals of other Black artists. Small pauses with huge meaning, nice.

I think it was really cool that Beyoncé presented a story to tell, except she didn’t give you the plot. You had to flip the pages yourself and dance your way into it.

The transitions in the show are like time travel vs. visual poetry.

Both artists nailed their transitions, but in very different ways. That’s always one of those things I really look forward to in these huge shows. Like the thoughtfulness that goes into how things flow.

Taylor’s shifts between eras felt like actual time travel. I still think about that folklore section of her Eras Tour show all the time. It moved from the mossy stillness of a woodland cottage to the gilded grandeur of “The Last Great American Dynasty,” then into the salty ache of “August,” and finally into the storm-tossed grief of “My Tears Ricochet.” It was pure theater. An entire emotional arc packed into one stunning act. I felt like I just finished reading Dostoevsky afterwards. Or maybe another transcendentalist, like Ralph Waldo Emerson.

And then the synths hit. There are a couple of drum kicks, and then a moment when folklore gave way to the neon-drenched, vaporwave shimmer of 1989. I lost my mind. It was seamless, cinematic, and deeply satisfying. I love a transition that makes you feel like you’re watching a Broadway show set to a pop symphony.

Beyoncé’s transitions were more like visual poetry. Interludes to reinforce the statement about reclaimation and empowerment. She didn’t rely on strict narrative beats. Instead, she used bold imagery and cinematography to stitch the connective tissue of the songs together. Her show felt more like an evolving collage, where each moment flowed into the next with symbolic depth.

Both artists made three-hour-plus shows feel like they were over in a flash, but the paths they took to get there couldn’t have been more different. Taylor used linear storytelling. Beyoncé built a myth in motion.

These big shows are like core memory machines.

These shows become core memories. Doesn’t matter if you’re 13 or 43, when an artist you love builds a world this vivid, it sticks with you—like the way Deadheads talk about Giants Stadium in ’91, or the way Swifties will talk about Eras at SoFi.

Artists and their creative teams do this with song and dance, of course. But also stagecraft, merch, and symbols that bleed into everyday life thanks to the everything-is-content world we live in.

Look, both tours were masterful at this kind of world-building.

Taylor’s show had Broadway-level precision. She dove into stage portals and reemerged in new eras like a time-traveling pop icon. It was pure spectacle. Beyoncé’s vision leaned mythic, riding a golden mechanical bull, flying over the crowd on neon horseshoes with her hair blowing in pure elegance, backed by that booming HBCU marching band sound that’s become a signature of hers.

Her daughters joining her onstage for “PROTECTOR” added a touching note on motherhood. That moment said: have fun, but remember who you’re doing it for. It reminds me of when I saw Phish on Father’s Day at Saratoga Performance Arts Center in 2004, and Page McConnell brought out his dad to sing “Bill Bailey Won’t You Please Come Home” to a very excited audience.

Even the merch at both tours told the story.

At the show I went to in August 2023, Swifties waited for over an hour in merch lines to scoop up t-shirts and hoodies of her Warhol-inspired artwork. I’m sure there are millions and millions of those t-shirts and hoodies out there. 

Beyoncé’s merch hit a little different, since it was conceptualized out of cultural reclaimation for classic Americana rather than artistic nostalgia.

As Queen Bey herself reminds us in “SPAGHETTII,” genres are “a silly little thing,” and that really manifests itself in the iconography of the Cowboy Carter’s merch. It’s rodeo-themed, featuring a denim cowboy hat, bottle opener hats, a “this ain’t a country tour, it’s a Beyoncé tour” tee, Rodeo Chitlin Circuit tee, blue jerseys, and hoodies that seem inspired by the Dallas Cowboys logo, denim jorts for $90. One Reddit commenter on a thread about hauls from the merch booth estimates they spent about $600.

I spent about $60 on a t-shirt myself. I just had to have one of Beyoncé holding a banjo. This one, via my Instagram:

If there was one bummer of the evening at Cowboy Carter, it’s that the bar by us was sold out of those novelty cowboy / cowgirl hat cups for the specality cocktails. So if you’re going and you want one, get it early.

When I posted my initial comparison on Threads, the response was wild. Swifties talked about personal growth, Taylor’s incredibly emotive songwriting, and the Eras Tour’s many milestones. The BeyHive lifted up cultural reclamation and Beyoncé’s unmatched ability to command a stage.

All valid. Nobody was wrong. When artists build worlds this vivid, people don’t just attend—they inhabit them. In the same way, Phish fans follow four guys from Vermont across the country just to see if they’ll bust out a song about an almost-extinct race of lizards that surrenders to the flow.

Music, meet identity and capitalistic commodity. And, like Phish or the Dead or any big touring act, that’s the magic trick both Beyoncé and Taylor have pulled off in their own singular way.

Two shows, two entirely different kinds of joy.

Ultimately, I have no crown to award. There’s no competition to declare. I know everyone loves a winner, and perhaps it’s the ultimate cop out to not declare one, but this isn’t a middle school gong show. It’s not some fictitious Taylor Swift vs. Beyoncé showdown for hearts, minds, and cultural supremacy. To me, that battle doesn’t exist, because I’ll still go to more Phish shows than Beyoncé shows (they’re a little cheaper, but not by much these days).

What does exist is artistic excellence vis-à-vis ve two performers pushing the boundaries of what live music can be. I’ve chased more than my fair share of jam-band highs, and witnessing two artists fill stadiums with that kind of energy reminds me why live music is still our greatest mirror. It reflects culture, individuality, and everything we carry with us.

I live for that kind of contemplative electricity.

Everyone finds their musical tribe eventually. And when those tribes overlap, when they come together under one roof, it feels a little like proof that we’re capable of something remarkable as a species.

Sure, I might have looked a little out of place trading bracelets or rocking rhinestones. But that’s the beauty of it. Music pulls us beyond our comfort zones. It invites us in.

And I’ll keep chasing moments like that.

IPA gut and all.