It was like the most effective karaoke evening ever for Maureen Gregory.
Gregory, alongside her two daughters, cousins, and nieces, went to the Taylor Swift live performance at Lincoln Monetary Discipline on Friday evening, the primary of three exhibits full of followers dying to see the Grammy-winning pop star’s first reside present in Philly in 5 years.
However whereas Gregory, 62, was there, she unknowingly turned considerably of a sensation herself.
The Downingtown mom loves reside music and singing alongside to it. As she ready for Friday’s live performance, she thought again to the Miranda Lambert present she went to in 2021, the place a mom and daughter duo behind her knew each phrase to each music, as she struggled to recollect the lyrics.
“I used to be jealous, I wished to know all of the phrases,” she mentioned in an interview.
A longtime Swift fan due to her daughters, Gregory couldn’t threat being outsung once more. So on Friday, she introduced the lyrics along with her — all 80 pages price.
She copied and pasted the phrases to each music on the set record right into a Microsoft Phrase doc and printed the packet at Staples, the place the staff had been fairly entertained, she mentioned.
It was 80 pages, double-sided and secured with a cheetah-print binder clip. And to ensure she might learn it contained in the darkish venue, she introduced alongside a mini studying mild.
She was barely anxious somebody would make enjoyable of her contained in the live performance, however at one level, the ladies standing subsequent to her leaned in for the phrases of a music they weren’t accustomed to.
After which some younger women just a few rows again observed, snapped a video of her in motion, and posted it on TikTok. Inside hours, it amassed tons of of 1000’s of responses. By Sunday afternoon, it had 4 million views and almost 750,000 likes.
“She introduced out the hymnal 🙏✨,” one commenter wrote.
“The church of Taylor Swift 😌,” wrote one other.
Gregory mentioned she was partially impressed by her church — even after 60 years, she mentioned, she nonetheless brings alongside a missalette so she by no means misses a phrase.
Her daughter requested her why she didn’t simply learn the lyrics off her cellphone.
“It’s too small,” Gregory mentioned, including that she didn’t wish to be distracted by her cellphone. “I made the font sufficiently big so I might see it.”
However she hasn’t dominated out bringing her mini iPad to the following present, she mentioned.
Going viral, she mentioned, has made an thrilling, stunning weekend much more particular. Friday was the fifth time Gregory has seen Swift in live performance, she mentioned, and every time her efficiency has improved.
And there’s nothing just like the aura the comes over Philadelphia when the singer is on the town, she mentioned — seeing teen women decked in glitter contained in the Wawa, everybody singing in unison to songs that always maintain such private that means, together with for Gregory.
The final time she noticed Swift reside was in 2018, alongside her center daughter, Claire.
“I don’t actually love taylor swift, however I actually love my mother. So we’re gong to see Taylor Swift tonight,” Claire wrote in an Instagram submit on the time.
However in 2020, Claire died after a yearslong battle with habit. Gregory holds the reminiscence of that live performance shut, and feels a deep connection to a handful of Swift’s songs.
Like “22″ — a music that got here out when Claire, 22 years previous on the time, was in Florida in a rehabilitation middle.
Swift performed the music Friday evening. And Gregory by no means needed to look down at her lyrics to sing alongside to it.