Chapter 27
I’M SORRY
There are three cars in front of me and three behind me, police cars in front and behind those, police motorbikes along the edges of the line. I’m hidden by blacked-out windows and driven by Kareem. We’re nearly at Murrayfield.
The stage at the stadium is already built when I arrive, and it’s the first time I’ve seen it in person.
All through rehearsals, it was mapped out on the floor with tape, but actually seeing the shape in person…
For this tour, I’ve gone for something that looks like a crossed-out T so that I can reach different areas of the standing crowd.
My thinking was there would be less spots that fans would fight over, would camp overnight for.
The stadium is eerily empty because I don’t go on for another few hours yet. There were loads of fans milling about outside when we approached the stadium, but none of them have been let in yet, letting me have this moment before sound check. To look around and see the stadium. To take it all in.
For my final tour.
At least for the time being.
I don’t think I’ll retire completely until I’ve released my tenth album. I know I’ll be releasing Odes and Ballads as an acoustic, surprise album. And leaving it on nine is such an annoying number. I want to give the fans some hope that I’ll be coming back before I finally leave for good.
I won’t tour Odes and Ballads, though. Its sound wouldn’t suit a stadium tour anyway.
And I might not even write a tenth album.
I might use it as an excuse to release all the songs that I’ve always wanted to release, that haven’t quite fit on any other album.
One final ‘here’s everything I have’ album.
It’s strange, but even thinking about it makes me feel lighter.
I stand on the stage. It’s so much less overwhelming in here when it’s dark – seeing every single seat in the daylight and knowing there are going to be people filling them for the first sold-out show is wild.
Seventy-three thousand people. All listening to the same song at the same time, screaming the same lyrics.
Ruby Rain is opening for me and, when I asked, I was met with screaming and crying and shouts of ‘are you serious!’.
She’s so young. Only twenty-three. She can’t believe she gets to play in stadiums already.
I tell her that by the time she’s my age she’ll have played more stadiums than anything else. She likes that.
We test the sound, and I can hear screaming from outside the stadium when I speak into the microphone. I don’t sing. It’s a long tour and I don’t want to waste my voice.
Dennis follows me back through the halls. I smile at the stadium staff I walk past.
‘You okay?’ I smile and tell them that I’m also fine thanks.
The halls are lined with stars who have played at the stadium over the years.
There’s a huge photo of me on tour for Privacy Piracy in 2023 on one of the walls.
I’d just broken the all-time attendance record for the stadium, breaking the previous record I set in 2019 on tour for Unlikely Silence, which broke the 2017 record I broke on tour for Sweethearts Inside at Night.
Just before I go on tonight, they’ll tell me if I broke the 2023 record.
Ruby is in her dressing room with the door open. I can hear her soft voice trickling through the corridors, which only gets louder as I approach. I knock on her door with my index finger, and she spins around, jumping up as soon as she sees me like I’m a judge entering a courtroom.
‘Sienna!’ she smiles and reaches out her hand to shake mine.
I ignore her hand and lift my arms, inviting her into a hug.
‘It’s so lovely to see you again,’ Ruby beams.
‘I’m so happy you’re here. Your voice! Somehow even more beautiful in person. Didn’t know that was possible.’
‘Thank you so much,’ she beams.
‘I would start to rest now and warm it up again just before you go on. It’s a long tour and you don’t want to destroy your vocal cords.’
‘Noted, thank you.’
‘There’s tonnes more advice where that came from,’ I smirk.
‘I’m so grateful for all of this, Sienna.’
‘You really deserve it. Please– don’t thank me. I’m the lucky one, having you on my tour!’ With a smile, I leave her dressing room and allow the mask to drop for a few moments before I open the door next to hers, the door to my own dressing room.
‘Are you still okay doing Ruby’s hair and make-up?’ I ask James and Dina.
I don’t need to ask twice because they both love doing someone else’s hair and make-up other than the bog standard I always go for.
‘Do you want me to go first?’ Dina asks.
I nod. ‘Please.’ I sit in the chair in front of the mirror and James opens his make-up bag on the vanity.
‘How’s your lover boy?’ James asks, while he presses some iridescent glitter across my eyelid.
I groan. ‘James…’
‘I refuse to believe this is it for you guys.’ A flick of something in my eyebrow. ‘He’s been playing the long game sticking around all these years.’
‘I really wish people would stop saying that,’ I say weakly. ‘He wasn’t playing the long game, he moved on.’
James raises his eyebrows at me.
‘He was engaged,’ I insist, but my voice cracks.
‘And where is that engagement now?’
‘James, do you mind if we don’t talk about it?’
He moves on to my foundation and sighs. ‘Sure, lovey. I guess you’re about to go into your pre-show silence anyway?’
I nod. For the rest of the day, until the moment I take the stage, I will not use my voice. I try to ignore the nagging in my stomach that this was Grampy time. That there was a brief moment I thought I could find new rituals with Luc.
No new traditions, just my silence.
Right before I’m scheduled to go on, Dina and James help me into my first outfit for the opening number. Black baggy shorts and a matching crop top. Super comfortable. And available in what will end up being nine different colours by the end of the tour.
I can hear Ruby Rain’s set echoing through the corridors, the volume of the stadium loud enough to reach all corners, even through whatever soundproofing they’ve tried to install.
It’s electric. The atmosphere of it. Every crowd is different, but this crowd, the opening night crowd… There’s nothing like it.
No one other than me and my dancers, the crew, know the setlist, the production of the tour.
The crowd don’t know what they’re getting.
In an age of social media, it’s very rare that a crowd will come to the show after opening night having managed to avoid all spoilers.
The bond between me and the opening night crowd will always be different because of that, because of the adrenaline in the room.
I’m going to have to sneak into the stadium to watch Ruby’s set at some point.
I know I have to see her perform, because she sounds insane from all the way back here.
I can only imagine what it’d be like hearing her in the stadium.
The crowd is so loud already, will they still have voices by the time I take to the stage?
Ruby is playing her closing song and the crowd screams as the music dies down. And then the playlist I carefully curated is playing in these last twenty minutes. Before my big return.
My phone pings on the dressing table and my heart lights up. Finally. Luc? I’ve been waiting for him to text again since I asked him to give me space. Maybe I’m ready now? I want to hear the full story. I can’t shake him off as I normally can other people.
How I feel about him isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
But it’s not Luc. It’s my mother.
MAUVE
Good luck. You’ll be amazing, as always. Forever proud of you
Rory and I in VIP. Made it just in time! Bloody trains
Next time could you sort us a car? Don’t see why we should have to get the train
‘I thought she was uninvited,’ I break my pre-show silence to show Jess and Mimi my phone.
I shouldn’t be surprised that Mauve didn’t listen when I told her she wasn’t welcome.
‘I’ll sort it,’ Mimi says. ‘I’ll make sure she doesn’t come back here at any point,’ she promises. ‘Try not to let it get to you.’
I take a deep breath and mime a zip over my mouth. Breathing out even slower to calm my anger.
‘Opening night here we go,’ Mimi beams.
I smile back, pointing to my throat to indicate I’ve entered my silence zone.
‘You ready?’ she asks, and I nod.
She holds out her hand and I give her my phone, which she zips in her crossbody bag.
‘Have you spoken to Luc?’ Jess asks.
I shake my head.
‘He’s not messaged?’ Mimi probes.
I shake it again and mime a zip over my lips. They both laugh.
‘Well… I’m sure he will. You want to talk to him, don’t you?’
I hesitate for a fraction of a second before my head nods. I don’t remember giving it the signal to do so, but we are where we are.
‘See you after.’ Jess kisses me on the cheek.
And then Dennis is here with the cloak and it’s time to go.
Two hours. Six complete outfit changes, more outfit adjustments. Twenty-eight songs – some full length, others shortened. Let’s go. I am ready. Ready as I’ll ever be.
My dancers are on stage performing their opening routine to the backing track we start with, and I am huddled underneath the stage in a lift that will pop me up in the middle.
The dancers will gather around a hole in the stage and then I’ll come up and be in the middle of them.
When they disperse, all the fans in the stadium will see me.
The opening bars of Kind Regards start as the stage starts pushing me upwards. The crowd is screaming so loudly that I can hear it through my in-ears. The monotone metronome keeps me in time and a robotic voice counts me into the first verse. My body reacts automatically after weeks of rehearsals.
The crowd is screaming the lyrics to the song which, in the grand scheme of things, hasn’t been out all that long.
The next song starts – Ballpoint Pen – and I readjust my position, my dancers clipping a long, black, sheer skirt around my waist, right at the top of the shorts’ waistband. Look number two.