When you do a job like this long enough, you eventually rack up moments that, with the benefit of time, take on a hue of cultural significance. In the moment, it’s nothing: you’re just standing there in a stuffy room, arms folded, side-eyeing gig-goers who keep bumping your beer hand. Thirty years later, you’re telling people: “Oh yeah, I saw Nirvana at Selina’s, they were pretty good.”

I didn’t see Nirvana at Selina’s, I saw something better. On March 12, 2009, I saw Taylor Swift perform in Marrickville to about 300 (400 max, surely) out-of-place cowboys and cowgirls at the Factory Theatre, in what was the then 19-year-old’s first ever Australian visit. (She also played the space that’s now 170 Russell in Melbourne, and The Tivoli in Brisbane during that tour.)

Although it’s been barely 15 years, whenever I casually mention this to people, they a) roll their eyes because it’s an obnoxious thing to casually mention, then b) lose their shit because of what Taylor Swift’s become. Considering she’s currently playing to at least 80,000 people a night on her Eras tour, the idea that she once performed to barely a few hundred people on a Thursday night in Sydney’s inner west is bizarre. It’s also unlikely to ever happen again, even if she were to, like, quit music and form a slam poetry duo with Travis Kelce.

At the time, I was working as the entertainment editor for Girlfriend magazine, a national magazine for teenage girls, where I, a 20-something fellow, would spend my days interviewing people like Hilary Duff and iCarly and the guy who played Chuck Bass on Gossip Girl. I interviewed the Olsen Twins! In early 2009, Taylor Swift was no Olsen Twins. She wasn’t even a Hayden Panettiere.

But that January, when I was offered a phone interview and tickets to Swift’s first-ever Sydney gig, I accepted. If largely unknown here, she was already a chart-topper in the United States, where her self-titled debut had introduced her as a country superstar. Her follow-up Fearless had already reached number one in the US and the crossover success of Love Story, already inching up the local charts, hinted towards a similar reception in Australia. I was intrigued by Swift’s burgeoning stardom, and eager to see it up close.

Like the island inhabitants in Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police, my memories are vapours. I have just vague impressions from the gig. Taylor, in a sparkly dress, blonde curls falling like spaghetti, dramatically flicking her head back and forth like she was performing in an arena the size of the MCG rather than a small hall subdivided by a billowing black curtain. Cowboys, in cowboy hats and cowboy boots, slumped against the walls – appreciative but casual – leaving a cavernous empty space in the middle of the room. Some teenagers by the stage erupting into a singalong when she got to Love Story. When she closed with Picture to Burn, I did air-mandolin (I mean, probably).

I don’t remember, as an online setlist informs me, that halfway through the gig Taylor played a cover of Jesse McCartney’s Leavin’. Back then, I also spent my days interviewing Jesse McCartney more times than is necessary, so I feel I should remember that. With 15 years of hindsight, Leavin’ is a solid track that I’ll be singing at karaoke as soon as possible. I do remember Taylor Swift dancing incredibly badly, so badly I felt empathy for her.