Preservation Hall Jazz Band got VIP treatment at Taylor Swift's final New Orleans show

Taylor Swift fans lucky enough to have ground-level tickets for The Eras Tour sometimes like to pass by the VIP seating sections on either side of the stadium floor to celebrity-watch.

That tradition continued during The Eras Tour’s three nights at the Caesars Superdome this weekend. A number of famous faces were spotted enjoying the VIP platforms’ complimentary food, drink and beach-style wood-and-canvas lounge chairs. Friday's VIP guests included Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, "Hunger Games" star Josh Hutcherson and "Grey's Anatomy" cast member Camilla Luddington.?Lively and Reynolds were also in attendance Saturday, as was "Good Morning America" co-host Robin Roberts.

At Sunday's final show of The Eras Tours New Orleans, Swift’s father, Scott Swift, hustled through a throng of fans just before the show started to reach the VIP section alongside a lighting tower at the right side of the stage.

A constant presence at his daughter’s concerts, Scott Swift greeted family members and fans as a digital clock on the stage screen counted down the final two minutes before showtime.

Fans clustered around the left-side VIP section snapping pictures of actress Angela Kinsey, who played the character named Angela on the American version of the sitcom “The Office.”

Many young Swifties also took pictures of a curly-haired man wearing dark sunglasses, despite not quite knowing who he was. Clearly he was….somebody.

He was in fact tuba player Ben Jaffe, the creative director of French Quarter traditional jazz shrine Preservation Hall. Several fellow members of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band joined Jaffe in the VIP section on Sunday, including drummer Shannon Powell, who was in fine spirits as he recovers from a stroke and heart attack he suffered in August. The band's Clint Maedgen, Ronell Johnson and Kevin Louis were also there.

Preservation Hall and Swift became acquainted in December 2022 when she was in New Orleans for several days as a kind of working vacation with then-boyfriend Joe Alwyn.?

On Saturday, Dec. 10, 2022,?Swift caught the 6:15 p.m. set at Preservation Hall. From a back-row pew, Swift watched as Powell powered led a band that included clarinetist and saxophonist Charlie Gabriel, who was 90 years old at the time (and is still performing).

Swift didn’t wear any sort of disguise that night, or even a hat, to hide her identity. Yet no one seemed to recognize her, possibly because nobody thought one of the world’s biggest pop stars would be hanging out at Preservation Hall on an unremarkable Saturday evening in December.

Before that show at Preservation Hall started, she reportedly slipped past a private reception in Preservation Hall's courtyard that global financial services firm BTIG hosted for attendees of the American Society of Hematology convention in town at the time.

She then took her seat in the back of Preservation Hall's main music room to listen to traditional jazz.

When Powell and company performed the song “My Bucket’s Got a Hole In It,” Swift made her way from the back row to the front bandstand and deposited multiple bills in the band’s tip jar. And still, no one seemed to realize who she was.

She apparently hit it off with the Pres Hall guys. Pictures turned up online of Swift posing cheek-to-cheek with a beaming Gabriel and laughing with him near the “lavender haze” cake from Bywater Bakery that she enjoyed while spending her 33rd birthday recording at Esplanade Studios.

Since she went to see the Preservation Hall Jazz Band perform the last time she was in town, it was only fair that the Pres Hall guys go see her show this time around. And they were able to do it VIP-style.