Read this: The DOJ's suit against Live Nation-Ticketmaster began long before the Eras Tour

While Swifties have gotten most of the credit for shining a light on all the ways Live Nation and Ticketmaster have corrupted the touring industry, one group already had a great deal of bad blood with the monopoly. Investigators in the DOJ’s antitrust division have been working to bring down the two-pronged behemoth for years, launching a potentially paradigm-shifting suit this past May after an 18-month investigation into the company’s stranglehold on the market.

A lengthy new report from Rolling Stone gives us our closest look at what’s been going on with the legislation behind closed doors since a bunch of senators spoke about it almost exclusively in Taylor Swift lyrics last year. The gist of the report is that lawyers and investigators like Jonathan Kanter, the assistant attorney general heading up the operation, have had their eyes on Live Nation-Ticketmaster for years. They insist that the Eras Tour did not play a role in their decision to move to break up the monopoly; instead, it was “a steady stream of concerns coming from both industry and consumers” about the conglomerate. “If you had seen what we’d already seen at that point, [the Eras Tour] did not strike me as any notable event in our investigation,” said principal deputy assistant attorney general Doha Mekki. “Ticketmaster had its explanation for what happened. Obviously, there are times where demand outstrips supply. That’s just the way the market works. Our claim was about something different; [it was] about abuse, exploitation, and self-dealing.”