Chapter 17
DARK DAYLIGHT
TRACK TBC | ODES AND BALLADS
'Dark Daylight’ is a song I wrote after the whole Benji fiasco, a song which chronicles someone who can’t do anything right, no matter how hard they try. Which sums up pretty much my entire fucking existence at the minute.
Colin-From-The-Label is on a Zoom call on Jess’s laptop on one end of the breakfast bar while Jess, Mimi and I perch on stools at the other end. Mine and Mimi’s laptops are both open to see ticket sales.
I’m worried about my voice with how long the tour is, but I’ll have to find a way to get through it.
The vocal therapist my doctor recommended is amazing, and she is trying her best to find a way for me to still do the shows.
She’s taken a look at the setlist and has advised where I should lip sync to avoid damaging my voice with doing high notes repeatedly, night after night.
The tickets allocated for pre-sale sold out in less than ten minutes yesterday, and now we’ll find out if there’s wider interest in the tour, other than those who follow me so closely that they pre-ordered the album or signed up for my newsletter.
We have four minutes until the sale begins and the ticket selling website has already crashed. A bad sign for fans, a good sign for me.
The thumping in my heart gets faster, and I’m trending on social media with people saying how nervous they are to ‘fight the war’ to ‘win’ tickets to my concerts.
People are saying they’ve taken a morning off work so they can dedicate all their brain space to it.
Another minute passes and now that it’s fifty-seven minutes past the hour, we’re nearly there.
My phone buzzes in my hand and Luc’s name flashes on the screen.
LUC
Good luck today, you’ll sell out in the blink of an eye
I react to it with a heart and then put my phone face down on the table. I haven’t seen Luc since we went to Wembley last weekend. But next week we’re flying to New York for the PAAs, and I’ve planned a nice surprise for his birthday two days later.
Until then, I’m in tour rehearsals.
Day in, day out.
Two minutes until tickets.
‘How would you feel about potentially adding more dates?’ Colin asks from the other side of the table.
Jess and I look at each other. The idea of extending… Of performing more shows for longer. The schedule is gruelling as it is. Not to mention dangerous for my voice. Rehearsals are exhausting me already.
I know I’ll find a way through it, but right now the idea of the tour fills me with dread. There must be a way to make music without everything that comes with it.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ Jess says.
Colin shrugs. ‘It wouldn’t be too much. Just two extra dates across the capitals probably. London, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Dublin, Belfast, Madrid, Lisbon, Berlin…’
Mimi shakes her head. ‘The current tour schedule is fine. I’m worried about Sienna’s voice if she takes on any extra shows. And she needs those rest days while she’s travelling.’
Colin purses his lips. ‘So, I should ask my assistant to stop working with the venues to make additional dates work?’
‘Yes,’ Mimi protests, gritting her teeth. ‘We didn’t agree to extra dates.’
I look at Mimi and her eyes are wide, gaping at the laptop screen. Speechless.
One minute until tickets.
‘Actually, you did. We have final say in everything as stated in Sienna’s contract.
’ Colin is one step away from bringing up my contract on his shared screen and highlighting the clause in fluorescent yellow.
‘If Sienna needs days off between shows to see her little boyfriend, that’s not my problem. ’
I bite my tongue. I want to tell him Luc’s not my boyfriend.
That the tour is the only reason Luc and I are ‘together’.
That I deserve rest as much as the next person.
I’m not a puppet, or an Abba Voyage hologram.
I can’t perform with as much energy as they want me to if I’m doing five nights in a row without a break.
Or eight nights in a row where my only break is travelling to the next venue.
‘They’re not going on sale this time, but if there is a lot of interest in the tour, we will add them later,’ Colin grumbles.
‘No.’ Mimi’s foot falls off the ledge of the bar stool and hits the floor with a stomp. ‘I’m telling you now… If you force Sienna to do extra dates, she will not have a voice to be your circus animal after that.’
The page refreshes on Mimi’s laptop and tickets are officially on sale. I watch as the page displays how many tickets are left and it’s almost a countdown, going down by thousands every few seconds. We all watch it, Colin finally sitting in silence as he watches the page from his end.
At seven minutes past nine, the page officially declares there are no tickets left for the UK and Europe leg. Tickets for the international leg go on sale in January, when we’ve properly finalised the dates and seen what state the first section of the tour has left my voice in.
‘Well done, Sienna.’ Mimi hugs me tight. Jess does the same.
Colin’s lips pull together in a pinch. ‘Not as fast as Unlikely Silence, but at least it’s sold out.’
I fight not to roll my eyes.
‘Before you all go,’ Colin clips in just before Mimi hangs up the call. ‘I’d like to discuss the contract renewal.’
The adrenaline from the ticket sale is still coursing through my veins, my palms clammy and a lump lodged firmly in my throat which only intensifies with the mention of my five-year contract with the label coming to an end.
‘I’ll find time in our diaries which fits,’ Mimi offers.
We need to go and get ready for the next thing happening today: the surprise drop of the deluxe album.
‘What’s the point in waiting, Maria, when we can discuss it now?’ Colin asks, and Mimi’s back straightens hearing her full name.
‘You can’t catch us off-guard like this,’ Jess smiles politely. ‘We need proper time in the diary to discuss such important matters.’
‘I’m not asking you to sign a contract today,’ Colin shakes his head.
‘I just want to let you know that, when you resign your contract, there will be a new clause.’ He lets this land.
Jess’s hand finds my leg under the table and squeezes.
‘We’ve decided to add a sort of… code of conduct clause, if you will.
To ensure what happened with Benji and all the others won’t happen again. ’
‘You want to put her under a morality clause,’ Mimi deadpans.
‘If you want to put it like that, sure.’
‘Not going to happen,’ Mimi replies. ‘Now, I will put time in the diary that works for everyone to discuss this properly, but just be aware, Colin, that Sienna will not be signing a contract which rules her personal life in that way.’
She hangs up before Colin can get another word in.
Mimi looks me in the eye. ‘That is not a conversation for today,’ she reassures. ‘But you’re not signing that contract. We’ll find another way.’
The plan didn’t work. I’ve put my heart on the line bringing Luc back into my life again for nothing.
I need to accept my career is coming to an end.
I take a bath to relax, to hopefully remove the adrenaline from my veins, everything that built up from the tour tickets and Colin’s comments.
We’ve overhauled my image enough that people are interested in seeing me on tour.
But not enough that my label doesn’t want to add a stupid clause into my contract.
That they still think I’d ‘embarrass’ them with my behaviour.
That they want an excuse to get rid of me as quickly as possible should I ever act astray again.
I sink underneath the bubbles, some soft classical music playing from my phone at the far end of the room and a group of candles lit on the table. It’s normally relaxing, but there’s something about today which makes relaxing impossible. Especially when Mauve starts texting.
MAUVE
So quick! Hope you’ve set aside some tix for family
Congratulations Sienna
Now you’ve sold the tix are you going to end it with Luc?
Very cautious of either of you getting your heart broken
I ignore her. Pulling myself out of the bath, I put on a pair of running shorts with a t-shirt.
‘Hello,’ Luc smiles as soon as I walk in the kitchen.
Grinning, I pull him into a hug. ‘Hey.’
His hands on the bottom of my back regulate my heartbeat again and the ringing in my ears dims. Even Mimi and Jess watching us doesn’t exist anymore in my head for those few seconds.
‘What are you doing here?’ I ask when I pull away.
He gestures to the huge bouquet of flowers in a gift bag in the middle of the table. ‘Wanted to say congratulations,’ he smiles. ‘And see you break the internet with the deluxe.’
I wasn’t sure for a little while whether I was going to release the deluxe edition or not.
With everything that happened, I thought it was more likely to be received negatively than anything else.
But now I’m back in society’s good books, I thought it would be nice to give them something they might want.
A new album cover, with five new songs which they can either stream or buy if they still collect physical versions of music.
We haven’t told anyone that it’s coming.
But at midday we’re going to hit ‘Go’ on streaming and set the website live again.
It’s been down for ‘maintenance’ since tour tickets sold out.
When it refreshes, it will have the new version of Your Email Didn’t Find Me Well splashed across the top.
And we’ve also decided to sell hand-signed paper inserts which come with the CD edition of this one.
We haven’t done it for a few albums now but it’s something fans are always asking for.
‘Are you ready for your first release, Lucas?’ I ask, pouring us all a fresh glass of the homemade lemonade that Jess put together at seven o’clock this morning.
‘As I’ll ever be,’ Luc beams.
‘First of many,’ Mimi toasts, holding her cup in the centre. We all clink our glasses without thinking about what we’ve toasted.
There are still five minutes left, but we sit still, in silence, grabbing chopped strawberries from a bowl in the middle which Jess prepared while I was in the bath.
When it gets to 11.59, streaming services refresh to include Your Email Didn’t Find Me Well [deluxe]. Jess’s scheduled Instagram post goes out on my socials with the new album artwork and the caption I wrote, which she edited slightly with how long it took tour tickets to sell out.
Thank you so much for selling out the UK and Europe tour in SEVEN minutes!
You guys are wild. In my head I’m still a 16-year-old girl from a council estate who just wanted to achieve her dreams and her mind is blown every single day with the support I get from across the globe.
Whether you’ve grown up with my music, or you started listening with this album, I appreciate you all so much.
I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d be doing this for this long but to say thank you ‘Your Email Didn’t Find Me Well [deluxe]’ featuring FIVE new songs is out on streaming services NOW.
If you want to pick up a physical copy, there are limited available copies on my website now as vinyl and CD.
Can’t wait to see you all on October 11th for the ‘Out of Office’ tour xx
I don’t usually watch the streams from an album go up.
I usually wait for it to go live at midnight and then get into bed, not allowing myself to see those early numbers.
But they increase even quicker than I thought they would.
Jumping from nothing to thousands, to tens of thousands, to hundreds of thousands.
The Instagram post does the same. More than one hundred thousand likes and a thousand comments within the first minute.
We are back. I am going to be okay.
I look at Luc, and he’s gazing back at me, a smile on his face which sends a heat circling my thighs. He’s done so much for me, and I don’t know how I can ever repay him. He’s basically put his entire life on hold for me for the second time.
We’re watching the album sales on the website. With standard editions of the albums, we keep them stocked but for copies like this, we only do a limited run. We might restock them at some point but once they’re gone, they’re gone for at least a while. If not forever.
The sales numbers tick over, getting closer and closer to the maximum amount we have. It’s only been three minutes.
The album is gone in four.