Taylor Swift’s Ireland Eras Tour kicks off with Flowers by U2

Taylor Swift made it through three Eras tours in London without once playing “London Boy,” the hit from her 2019 album Lover. The mood of the record hasn’t aged so well, but looking ahead to her three concerts that begin tonight in Ireland, “You know I love a Dublin boy” sounds better nonetheless. Ahead of Swift’s series of performances at the Aviva Stadium, the musician received a welcome gift from U2, her self-proclaimed “Irish fan club.”

The band sent Swift a bouquet of flowers with a note: “Welcome back to our hometown…leave some of this?!!!!” The card was signed by Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. Swift shared the correspondence on her Instagram story, writing: “I’m already feeling the Irish hospitality!! @U2 thank you for always being so classy and cool.”

The gesture is made all the sweeter by the dig Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl took at Swift during a London gig the same night. “I’m telling you, man, you don’t want to take the wrath of Taylor Swift,” Grohl said onstage after his audience booed at the mere mention of the singer. “We like to call our tour the ‘Errors Tour.’ We’ve been through more than a few eras and we’ve made more than a few damn mistakes. Just a few. That’s because we’re actually playing live. What? I’m just saying. You like raw, live rock ‘n’ roll music, right? Then you’ve come to the damn right place.”

Swift took a swipe at Grohl the following night on stage at Wembley Stadium. “Every one of my band members, every single one of our crew, my band that’s going to play live for you tonight for 3.5 hours, they deserve this so much,” she said. “And every one of my fellow artists, too. And you have given this to us so generously; we will never forget it.”

After leaving Ireland, Swift will take the Eras tour to Amsterdam, Zurich, Milan, Gelsenkirchen, Hamburg, Munich, Warsaw and Vienna before returning to London in mid-August. The singer recently confirmed that her career-spanning live show will officially end in December.