The big day is finally here: This Swiftie has made it to the Super Bowl.
I’ve spent the week in Las Vegas tracking all things Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift. I asked him a non-football question at a press conference filled with sports journalists, went to the NFL’s version of the Oscars and even went to a strip club that offered the couple a $1-million package to stop by on Sunday.
But today is different. Today we may actually gain proximity to Swift herself. I have dozens of friendship bracelets, a comfortable pair of sneakers and my eagle eye. Follow along as I bring you all the Swelce news I can find.
9:30 a.m: The earliest media buses depart Mandalay Bay at 10:30 a.m.; my colleagues and I decide to arrive as early as possible just in case. As luck would have it, the driver decides to leave an hour early, getting us on the road to Allegiant Stadium with plenty of time to spare.
The drive to the stadium isn’t long — five minutes, tops. We could walk, but there are so many security barricades that the best course of action is to go the official route. It’s so early that there’s still not a lot of action on the streets outside the stadium — no one has set up makeshift T-shirt stands or food carts yet.
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9:35 a.m: Aaaaand we’re here. The only other people in the line to have their bags checked are stadium workers, decked out in official jackets.
Allegiant Stadium opened in 2020 and it’s still got that shiny and bright sheen to it. The second-most expensive stadium in the world, ($1.9 billion), it crouches around its 65,000 seats, reflecting the growing swarm around it. I’ve heard some compare it to the Death Star, but I’m into it. I’ve never been to a non-college football game before (I know. Life is unfair.) Still, the tunnels look familiar to me — not only because I’ve been to concerts in other stadiums but because, obviously, these are exactly the kind of halls we’ve seen Swift walking down this season on her way to her seats.
10 a.m.: My credential gives me access to the service level, which is where a lot of the action seems to take place. There are boxes of doughnuts and huge bags of popcorn ready to be rolled to the concession stands. Big red bags with Kansas City Chiefs logos are stacked outside of the locker room. And at the end of a long walkway is a huge open-air garage, where the buses dropping off the players are set to arrive. I decide to post up here, hoping to catch a glimpse of Kelce in his pre-game fit.
11:37 a.m.: The NFL camera crew starts shifting their gear onto their shoulders, indicating something might be happening soon. It’s been colder than I expected in Vegas this week — today’s high is predicted to be 54 degrees — and it’s at least 15 degrees cooler on this dark, windy garage. So I’m really hoping Kelce steps off the bus. Alas, while a handful of KC players arrive — including Patrick Mahomes, in his trademark suit — Kelce isn’t among them.
11:58 a.m.: We have our first celebrity garage-sighting: Post Malone, who is singing “America the Beautiful” before the game today. He walks by leisurely, only to emerge with his posse a few times again shortly later, his guitar strapped around his neck. Reba McEntire, who is decked out in a fur coat I wish I was wearing, also arrives in time to get ready to sing the national anthem.
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12:40 a.m: With less than thee hours until kickoff, Kelce has arrived — and he walks right past me. He’s looking remarkably shiny, dressed in what Vogue says is a sequin suit he had custom made for the occasion by Amiri. He’s wearing sunglasses and betrays no emotion as he struts in. “All right, Trav,” a woman next to me shouts. “Alright nah,” he responds, using his signature catchphrase from the “New Heights” podcast.
1 p.m.: A kind security guard has told me that all “friends and family” will be coming through this entrance, and I’m hoping that includes Swift. But my phone is at 15%, and I don’t want it to die before she comes, so I decide to chance it and book it up to the press box to grab my charger.
1:17 p.m.: A fellow reporter downstairs texts me that he sees some commotion coming from the side where the 49ers entered the stadium. (I’ve been on the Chiefs side.) I rush downstairs, until a slew of texts arrive on my phone: She’s here. And I missed her. How could this happen to me?
My colleague, Sam Farmer, caught some of the action and says she came in with Blake Lively, Ice Spice and her mother, Andrea.
The only thing that makes me feel slightly better is that she came in across the parking garage, far from my eye-line, and those close to her were apparently instructed by security to keep their phones down. That’s probably because the only ones who ended up getting a clear shot of her were the NFL cameras.
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I missed this chance, but I will not give up. I have at least five hours left under the same roof as T.Swift.
1:30 p.m.: Back out in the sunshine, fans have started to trickle in. I spot a telltale sign of a Swiftie: A pink glittering heart painted around her eye, just like Swift rocked on her “Lover” album. It’s Sloan Moyer, 11, a Kansas City resident who found out last week her dad had surprised her and her family with tickets to the game. They’re big fans of the Chiefs and go to all the home games, but Sloan loves Swift the most. She’s been to three home concerts and supports her idol’s new romance.“I think it’s a good idea. I hope it moves on,” she said giddily. “I just love supporting her. I would, like, probably start crying or something if I saw her.”
Sloan, 11, came from Kansas City with her family to cheer on the Chiefs — and Taylor Swift. She’s rocking a “Lover”-themed heart around her eye.
(Amy Kaufman/Los Angeles Times)
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1:45 p.m.: There are a handful of booths surrounding the stadium, selling standard Super Bowl merch and overpriced sodas. But Hunt Auctions catches my eye because they have a bunch of unique-looking memorabilia. I immediately ask Gary Reibsane, who is putting out the gear, to point out the Kelce items. He’s got six helmets signed by #87 on display ($925 to $1150) plus his jersey ($975) and a photo signed by both Mahomes and Kelce ($2,850.) How do they get the stuff signed? “We buy it in bulk from the autograph sellers,” Reibsane says. I ask if he thinks he’ll sell out of all of the Kelce items today. “Oh, this isn’t everything out there — there’s back-stock,” he grins.
A jersey signed by Kelce is going for $975 at a booth outside Allegiant Stadium.
(Amy Kaufman/Los Angeles Times)
Hunt Auctions is selling a variety of autographed Kelce helmets outside the stadium. This one goes for $925.
(Amy Kaufman / Los Angeles Times)
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2:20 p.m.: It’s nearing game time, and I’ve yet to head to the press box. I head up to find my two colleagues from the sports section, Gary Klein and Sam Farmer, ready with binoculars for me to borrow. As it turns out, Swift is posted in a box directly across the stadium from us, and we can see her if we just use the special lenses.
It’s weird to be trying to catch a glimpse of her this way instead of anxiously waiting for the TV to pan to her during a telecast at home. But knowing she’s 150 yards or so away from me is a different feeling altogether. My co-workers and I try to calculate when might be best to try to head over and catch a glimpse of her IRL instead of through the binoculars. I don’t feel comfortable revealing my strategy here, but let’s say I will not be remaining in the press box for this entire game.
4 p.m.: With the first quarter over, I decided to see if I could get closer to Swift’s suite. (Also, the food in the press box included “Jackpot dogs” that I was warned had an “explosive payout,” so I wanted to peruse the offerings outside.) Less than five minutes later, I was in the area that houses the nicest boxes. Most had at least one security guard posted outside, but outside one door three men wearing blazers stood stoically taking in the scene. Nearby two young women — one in an 87 jersey — were staring at the door, alongside a man with a long-lens camera and another wearing a USA Today press pass. This had to be it, though there are bathrooms in the suites, meaning she wouldn’t have to exit until she was leaving the stadium.
I asked the young women in the jerseys if they were Swifties, gave them my card and explained my mission: that I, too, was here for Taylor and Travis. We started to chat until their mom interjected: “Do not talk to her,” she warned.
A still from ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’
| Photo Credit: Sony Pictures
The best slasher films offer a particular gory comfort, with the chase, deaths and a kind of twisted logic. I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) based on Lois Duncan’s 1973 young adult novel was immense fun and spawned two sequels, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998) and I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer (2006), a series in 2021 and countless headline options to sub-editors.
The latest reboot after the show was cancelled, is a sequel to I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and features the two survivors of the 1997 Southport massacre, Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr.).
I Know What You Did Last Summer (English)
Director: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson
Cast: Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers, Sarah Pidgeon, Billy Campbell, Gabbriette Bechtel, Austin Nichols, Freddie Prinze Jr., Jennifer Love Hewitt
Runtime: 111 minutes
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Storyline: Five friends are haunted by a death they were responsible for a year ago
Southport has a new bunch of terrorised friends — Danica (Madelyn Cline), Ava (Chase Sui Wonders), Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), Teddy (Tyriq Withers) and Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon).
After Danica and Teddy’s engagement party, the five friends go for a drive on the winding cliff road where a terrible accident occurs. Stevie, who had a problem with substance abuse, just got cleaned up and was working at Ray’s bar when she joined the friends on the fateful cliff road drive. The five friends decide to keep quiet about their involvement and go their separate ways.
A year later, Ava returns to Southport for Danica’s bridal shower. The events of the previous year naturally have affected the friends. Teddy, whose father, Grant, (Billy Campbell) a wealthy real estate mogul who “scrubbed the internet” of all mentions of the earlier killings, spirals out of control prompting Danica to break their engagement. Danica is now engaged to sweet Wyatt (Joshua Orpin).
A still from ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’
| Photo Credit:
Sony Pictures
On her flight to Southport, Ava meets Tyler (Gabbriette Bechtel) who hosts a true crime podcast called Live, Laugh, Slaughter (one wonders how slaughter is a laughing matter) and is coming to North Carolina to follow up on the 1997 Southport killings.
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Soon enough Danica gets an anonymous note saying, yes, “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” and it all starts again — the hook, slicker, hat, blood and bodies. The kills are not particularly imaginative, the chases are on the wrong side of thrilling and the final reveal will have your eyes roll right out of their sockets.
While it was nice to see Prinze Jr. and Hewitt reprise their roles, I Know What You Did Last Summer offers nothing new by way of plot, character or dialogue. The young cast act for all they are worth and the effort shows. The movie provides unintentional laughs with memories of Keenen Ivory Wayans’ Scary Movie (2000). Unless, one can come up with radically new twists to the slasher formula, it is probably time to lay the hooks and ghostface to rest. Sigh.
I Know What You Did Last Summer is currently running in theatres
By Barry Mazor Da Capo: 416 pages, $32 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.
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What is it about brothers? So competitive, so determined to outshine the other, so very male. In popular music, there are numerous examples of passionate sibling partnerships that have burned bright only to flame out, leaving recriminatory anger and the occasional lawsuit in their wake.
The Everly brothers were no exception. Foundational pillars of 20th century popular music, they formed the first great harmony vocal duo to bridge country music and pop. Over a five year period from 1957 to 1962, the brothers recorded a series of singles — “Wake Up Little Susie,” “Bye Bye Love” and “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” among them — that imprinted themselves into the pop-music canon, their soaring, wistful, close-interval harmonies gliding straight into our souls.
You don’t have to look too hard to find Phil and Don Everly’s traces. The Beatles regarded them as the harmony group they longed to emulate; you can hear them sing a snatch of “Bye Bye Love” in Peter Jackson’s “Get Back” documentary, and Paul McCartney name-checked them in his 1976 song “Let ‘Em In.” Simon & Garfunkel wanted to be the Everlys and included “Bye Bye Love” on the “Bridge Over Troubled Water” album. In 2013, Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones recorded “Foreverly,” an album of Everly Brothers songs.
And yet, biographies of them are scant. Barry Mazor’s “Blood Harmony” is long overdue, a rigorously researched narrative of the duo’s fascinatingly zig-zaggy 50-plus-year career, as well as a loving valentine to the pair’s enduring musical power.
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In his book, Mazor is quick to refute many of the myths that have accreted around the pair, starting with the backstory that the brothers were reared in Kentucky, a cradle of bluegrass, and that their dad, an accomplished guitarist and singer, nurtured them up from rural poverty into spotlight stardom. In fact, Mazor’s book points out that the brothers, who were born two years apart, moved around a lot as kids — Iowa and Chicago, mostly — soaking in the musical folkways of those regions and absorbing it all into their musical bloodstream. Though they were apprenticed by their father to perform as adolescents, they were their own men, with a sophisticated grasp of various musical genres as teenagers.
“They were as much products of the Midwest as they were of Kentucky,” says Mazor from his Nashville home. “The music they learned and the culture they absorbed was in Chicago, where they lived with their parents for a time, and they picked up on the R&B there. All of this eventually adds up to what we now call Americana, which is music that has a sense of place.” The Everlys brought that country-meets-the-city vibe to pop music.
Another misconception that Mazor clears up in “Blood Harmony” is the notion that the Beatles were the first musical group to write and play its own songs. In fact, Phil and Don wrote a clutch of the Everlys’ greatest records, including Phil’s 1960 composition “When Will I Be Loved,” which became a mammoth hit when Linda Ronstadt covered it in 1975. It’s also true that Don is rock’s first great rhythm guitarist, his strident acoustic strum powering ”Wake Up Little Susie” and others. George Harrison was listening, as was Pete Townsend.
The Everlys produced hits, many of them written by one or both of the husband-and-wife team of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant: “Bird Dog,” “Love Hurts,” “Poor Jenny” and others. But the Beatles’ global success became a barricade that many of the first-generation rock stars couldn’t breach, including the Everlys. “Even though they were only a couple of years older than the Beatles, they were treated as old hat,” says Mazor.
Complicating matters further: A lawsuit brought by their publishing company Acuff-Rose in 1961 meant that the brothers could no longer tap the Bryants to write songs for them. The same year, they enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve and found, just as Elvis had discovered a few years prior, that military service did little to help sell records. By the time the lawsuit was settled in 1964, both brothers had descended into amphetamine abuse.
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The Everlys had to go back to move forward. Warner Bros. Records, their label since 1960, had become the greatest label for a new era of singer-songwriters taking country-rock to a more introspective place. Future label president Lenny Waronker, an Everlys fan, wanted to make an album that would place the brothers in their proper context, as pioneers who bridged musical worlds to create something entirely new.
Author Barry Mazor is quick to refute many of the myths surrounding the Everlys.
(Courtesy of the author)
The resulting project, called “Roots,” drew from the Everlys’ musical heritage but also featured covers of songs by contemporary writers Randy Newman and Ron Elliott. Released in 1968, the same year as the Byrds’ “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” and the Band’s “Music from Big Pink,” “Roots” sold meekly, but it remains a touchstone of the Everlys’ career, a key progenitor of the Americana genre. “‘The ‘Roots’ album was one last chance to show they mattered,” says Mazor. “And there was suddenly room for them again. It wasn’t a massive seller, but it opened the door.”
If anything, it was their own fraught relationship that tended to snag the Everlys’ progress. Their identities were as intertwined as their harmonies, and it grated on them. Mazor points out that they were in fact vastly different in temperament, Phil’s pragmatic careerism running counter to Don’s more free-spirited approach. This push and pull created tensions that weighed heavily on their friendship and their musical output.
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“Phil was more conservative in some ways. He was content to play the supper club circuit well into ‘70s, while Don wanted to explore and was less willing to sell out, as it were,” says Mazor. “And this created a wedge between them.” Perhaps inevitably, from 1973 to roughly 1983, they branched out as solo artists, making records that left little imprint on the public consciousness. They had families and eventually both moved from their L.A. home base to different cities.
But there was time for one final triumph. Having briefly set their differences aside, the brothers played a reunion show at London’s Royal Albert Hall in September 1983, which led to a collaboration on an album with British guitarist Dave Edmunds producing. Edmunds, in turn, asked Paul McCartney whether he would be willing to write something for the “EB 84” album, and the result was “On the Wings of a Nightingale,” their last U.S. hit, albeit a modest one.
“The harmony singing that the Everlys pioneered is still with us,” says Mazor. “If you look back, the Kinks, the Beach Boys, all of these brother acts all loved the Everlys. But there’s also a contemporary act called Larkin Poe, who called one of their albums ‘Blood Harmony.’ They set an example for how two singers can maximize their voices to create something larger than themselves. This kind of harmony still lingers.”
Story: A Jaipur tour guide’s romance with an NRI unravels after a tourist from their group goes missing. When he becomes the prime suspect and vanishes, a nationwide hunt ensues—unearthing secrets that upend the truth and shatter every assumption.Review:
Murderbaad
sets out with the ambition of being a layered whodunit, offering an intriguing mix of romance, mystery, and suspense. Helmed by debutant teenage director Arnab Chatterjee, the film revolves around Jaish Madnani (Nakul Roshan Sahdev), a recent migrant to Jaipur who lands a job as a tour guide and quickly finds himself entangled in a web of suspicion when a tourist from his first group suddenly goes missing. With the beautiful backdrops of Jaipur and a premise rich with potential,
Murderbaad
opens promisingly but falters under the weight of its own ambition. The film’s strength lies in its performances. Nakul Roshan Sahdev delivers a compelling portrayal of Jaish, walking the fine line between vulnerability and duplicity. His on-screen chemistry with Kanikka Kapur (Issabelle) feels natural, even if the romantic track occasionally sidelines the thriller narrative. Sharib Hashmi is a standout, bringing both heart and tension to his role, especially in his brief but powerful moments with Saloni Batra. Unfortunately, the writing doesn’t give Batra or Manish Chaudhari, who plays the investigating officer, enough material to elevate their otherwise competent performances. Visually, the contrast between Jaipur’s regal charm and the quieter tones of West Bengal adds a layer of aesthetic depth, but the film is let down by uneven camerawork. The shaky frames during key scenes distract more than they immerse. Similarly, while the second half does pick up pace with some genuine twists, the storytelling suffers from loose ends, predictable reveals, and a lack of narrative sharpness that could have elevated the film to a tighter, more impactful crime drama.
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Murderbaad
is an earnest attempt from a first-time director, and Arnab Chatterjee deserves credit for crafting a story that, despite its flaws, keeps the viewer curious. However, the film ultimately feels like a missed opportunity—a story with potential that needed more polish, a stronger edit, and tighter writing to truly stand out in the crowded crime thriller space. One hopes this is just the beginning for Chatterjee, and that with experience, his storytelling will mature into something more gripping and refined.
