It all began with a phone call. "What are you up to next weekend? Fancy a gig with a major movie star at a festival in Italy, just miming to one tune? Loadsa dosh and a bit of a laugh." Ok I thought, I'll cancel my gigs and go for it, even though the chances of it happening were very secret one off song at this festival and you are the band. You are going to learn the tune, meet the star, and be flown to Verona in a private jet where you will run on stage, play, run off and come back. You will speak to NO PRESS or FAMILY." GOD I thought I am really going to meet him. How exciting. We learnt the tune and waited. Still no sign of Michelle.

It all happened at once. Five bodyguards came and searched the room. Michele turned up and started arguing with Fabio in Italian and a famous face appeared at the door. Hearts beating, more giggling and confusion. Nicholas walks in shakes our hands in turn and a very strange thing happened. Time stood still, Nic looked ill, thinner than I remember and had a strange Italian accent.. We'd been HAD. Big time. " OK you may have guessed by now that I am not Nicholas Cage. I am an actor, we are going to trick our rival TV station by fooling them at their festival. We have secret cameras and are going to expose them as the fools they are for believing that Nicholas Cage would really play at their festival. HA HA Ha....Ha ha ahahahahaha!!"( OK, he didnąt really laugh..I made that bit up).

We were dumbstruck. And p*ssed off. But mostly disappointed. So we refused to do it..BAD MOVE. "We want our money and we want to go now" I said after a quick meeting. "We donąt think so" they said, "give us your return tickets". This was followed by hours of arguing, manipulating, threatening and blackmail. The more they did this the more we stuck to our guns. Little did we know that we were involved in a very expensive and risky plot to trip up the other TV station. It was also being done without permission from the right bosses and we were seriously rocking Fabios boat.

They made us sign these contracts and told us that the only way we could get our money was to perform in front of their cameras for a few minutes to justify how much money they had spent. Michelle told us to go along with it but we were seriously worried at this point. We went back to the hotel and prepared ourselves for the next days adventures. I had our tickets and would not let them go.

Next day, more dodgy guys in bad suits and mercs. Michelle has strangely disappeared in the dead of night. Go to studio. Coach (yes coach) full of camera crew for us. Try to get out of car, gently pushed back in and doors centrally locked (I kid you not, I thought we were going to DIE). More high speed driving to another studio. Met at door by "OK follow me to hair and makeup you are going on stage in about 30 minutes, would you like a drink?"

"WHAT???!!" "HUH?" "I donąt want make-up, I want to know whats going on? Are we going to be forced on stage at gunpoint to play with fake Nic and televised? Am I ever going to see my Mum again?"

We were taken to this massive studio with about 9 cameras and a small audience. There is a keyboard, a drum kit, and some mics set up. NONE of the original people that we have been dealing with are there. A guy comes up and asks us for our cd that we were miming to..we all look at each other and try to explain to him that we are not a band, and tell him what happened. He muttered " Just play anything..." The penny began to drop. Nobody there knew what was going on. They had just been told to film us.."Oh christ, we said, what are we going to do, has anyone got any cds on them that have sax, guitar, drums, bass and keys." Someone had a dance cd so we handed it to the manager and heard it blasted around the studio.

Picture yourself in a flash studio with an audience, camera crews, stage crew, miming really sincerely to a track that you have never heard in your life that doesnąt even have sax OR guitar, that lasts TEN F****** minutes, looking at the drummer trying desperately to get the fills in the right place, looking up and seeing your own face on every wall with tears of hysterical laughter rolling down your cheeks and yet still caring that you press the piano keys in time with the music. We did such a dreadful job, the camera crew looked at us really strangely when we came off stage. They of course didnąt know what was going on.....

We got home in one piece, we got paid cash, but they did try and get our tickets off us 'to photocopy'. I was so paranoid at this point that I wouldnąt let them and I think that was the right thing to do. Next time you get a phone call and think "Ok, you only live once!" just remember that you may not live to tell the tale.......Anna Stubbs 24/08/03