With all the hype surrounding Taylor Swift’s imminent album release, we thought we’d calm the hysteria down by reminding Canberrans that back in 2009, Tay Tay was just a country girl who once played a small gig at Thredbo village.
Swifties may not be aware, but when she was just 19 years old, this mega-star — who injected $300 million into the Australian economy during her 2023-24 Eras Tour — performed at sleepy Thredbo, population 300-400 (in the off-season).
The National Film and Sound Archives has exclusive footage of Tay Tay playing at a festival called CMC Rocks The Snowys (even though it was autumn at the time, so there were no “snowys”).
In the rare clip, Swift electrifies the stage with a spirited rendition of You Belong with Me. She pays tribute to her country roots with a simple black T-shirt and jeans over cowboy boots, before a surprise butterfly-from-a-cocoon costume reveal makes the crowd go wild. This is a performer on the edge of a great transformation, who already has her stagecraft and genius marketing down pat.
She had world domination in her sights. Today, she has billions of devoted Swifties worldwide and she wields considerable cultural, economic and sociopolitical influence.
Chief curator at the NFSA, Meagan Loader, was amazed that such a global pop icon visited Canberra’s local ski fields.
“It’s incredible to think that Taylor Swift’s second-ever Australian show took place at Thredbo, where audiences were able to see her as an artist on the edge of huge transformation,” Meagan said. “It’s a real joy for us to share this as part of our online winter collection and know that the Swifties of the 2070s will still be able to enjoy her early days.”
Even in 2009, Swift was already a sensation with two albums out, Taylor Swift and Fearless (which have now topped 6.5 million and 9.9 million global sales respectively). But she was yet to truly break away from her Nashville origins and enter today’s pop mainstream.
Sixteen years later and Taylor Swift generates her own economy — “Swiftenomics” — wherever she travels. The Eras tour contributed US$4.3 billion to the GDP of the United States.
Thredbo would no doubt love such an economic injection today. As Australia’s ski seasons get shorter, towns and operators who rely on the snow are looking to diversify in the off-season.
Such is Swift’s influence, when she announced her new album last week on Instagram, it racked up more than 168 million views in a day.
Her 12th album, The Life of a Showgirl, is due to be released on 3 October. View Taylor Swift’s Thredbo concert here: nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/asset/102880-taylor-swift-rocks-snowys-you-belong-me
