Taylor Swift made a surprise appearance at Bon Iver’s Oct. 26 concert at London’s OVO Arena Wembley, where she and frontman Justin Vernon performed their duet “Exile” together in person for the first time.
They were also joined on stage during Thursday’s show by “The National” musician Aaron Dessner, who produced Swift’s 2020 albums “Folklore” and “Evermore.”
While Swift and Vernon collaborated on “Exile,” they had previously only performed it together virtually for the Disney+ documentary concert film “Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions.”
They collaborated again on the title track of “Evermore” later that year, but had still not officially met in person. During her acceptance speech for album of the year at the 2021 Grammys, Swift thanked Vernon for his contributions, saying, “I’m so glad to meet you one day.”
To rapturous applause at the end of their duet on Thursday, Vernon joked, “The most talented person in the world, Taylor Swift,” to which she replied, “The most talented person in the world, Justin Vernon,” before saying added: “Also the most talented person in the world, Aaron Dessner!
It’s been a busy week for Swift, who released her tenth studio album “Midnights” on October 21. The release made history almost immediately, breaking Spotify’s record for most-streamed album in a single day.
“Midnights” was met with critical fanfare, with Variety‘s Chris Willman writes: “It’s worth noting that ‘Midnights’ marks its 10th Grand Slam in a row (not counting re-recordings), a record you’d be hard pressed to find among the great singer-songwriters who influenced or otherwise came before it, almost all of them had their misfires at this point.The rest of the musical sphere doesn’t often come along on the same occasion, to the point that you often think it’s something like the age of But the arrival of each new Swift album as an authentic musical event may make you think we’re living in the good old days, or the night, after all.
