Always You

1. Ed's Special Friend

After performing my first song of the night, it is time for me to talk to the crowd. 

"Los Angeles how are we all doing tonight?"

In response, the crowd cheers. I can only see the first eleven rows and some people on the sides but the rest is pitch black because this stadium is huge. 

"I may not be able to see all of you but I can sure hear you." 

Once again, they cheer in response. This time it was louder than the first. 

I walk from the middle of the stage over to the left side and wave to the people in the front row. "Whist singing my first song of the night I noticed that a lot of you knew the words. That's amazing, thank you for that."

"But for those who have never heard of me and are thinking who the hell is this girl with the funny accent, my name is Hailey Hayes and I come from a place about a fourteen hour plane trip away called Sydney, Australia."

"I know all of you came here to see Ed so right now can we just get a cheer for how good he is?" 

At the mention of Ed's name, the crowd goes ecstatic. After all, they came here to support Ed and I'm just the opening act but I enjoy it so much. A smile makes its way onto my face because of all these people here tonight are gathered to support Ed and he deserves every single bit of recognition. Hopefully one day I will sell out an arena too. 

"Now I'm not just saying this because I owe Ed my whole life for giving me this opportunity, but he has always been and always will be one of my favourite artists. Not only are the lyrics in his songs so meaningful and the way he sings them so passionate, but the way he performs is so unique, captivating and absolutely magical."

I pause for a moment and walk over to the right side of the stage before speaking again. "I'm not going to give it all away about how talented this man is, you'll all see it for yourself in about an hours time, but I've tried a looping machine and that shit is hard."

I hear laughter from the crowd and my guess is because they agree looping is hard, or they find it funny that I swore. Most of the time the crowd finds it humorous when I swear. 

"How did I get such an amazing opportunity to travel the world with Ed Sheeran? Let me tell you all a little about myself." 

Walking back to the centre of the stage, I put my microphone in the stand in front of me and lean against it. Imagine if it fell, that'd be hilarious. 

"I was a seventeen year old girl who was halfway through grade eleven. I would sit down every wednesday afternoon in my wardrobe and record covers or sing original songs. Why record in my wardrobe? It was the only place that was quiet and had no background noise or echoes."

The audience laughs and I see two girls in the third row look at each other whilst pointing. It's either an inside joke or maybe they do the same thing. Who knows. 

"After recording the songs I would upload them to Youtube. I kept doing that and one day Ed seen my cover of his song Lego House. He retweeted that video and three months after that he posted a video of him dancing along to my cover of Kiss Me. Shocked was an understatement. I had five people check and see that it was Ed's real account and not someone just trolling me. But it was real, he seen, danced to and shared my covers of his songs."

"Two months later I met with him and a month after that I was announced as one of the support artists for his world tour in Australia. Here I am two years later, a permanent guest on his worldwide tour. Tonight is night two of four at Rose Bowl Stadium. How awesome is this place?"

I only have six shows left in the USA and then we will move on to touring Australia. After this leg of the tour we have three weeks off and then we jet off to Australia where Ed will finish this years world tour.