The early
morning clouds of mist moved amongst them as the queue of girls stood outside
the LWT studios, most people in their right minds wouldn’t be up at this time
on a Saturday morning, your normal average teenager would be tucked up warm in
bed at 9.30 am however a crowd had still turned out for the mornings live
recording of CD:UK, all clutching their tickets excitedly.
Finally the
huge black gates creaked open and a young woman wearing tight jeans, a leather
jacket and high boots came stomping out in true military style.
“Priority
over here,” she barked, pointing over to her right, “and normal tickets over
here, have your ID ready, no ID, no entrance.”
Mel found
her eyes glancing over her passport, seeing with relief that it was all intact
and valid. If there was one thing she
didn’t want to do it was to get on the wrong side of Phillipa.
Phillipa
was the young Audience Researcher in charge of keeping the crowds in check,
although young she was also loud, confident and assertive, it was her studio
and if anyone mucked her about they’d be out.
They moved
their way to the front of the gate where Phillipa was waiting, she glanced them
up and down as they approached her before taking their ID and looking down at
it and then back up at them. Mel felt
her heart tighten in her chest, what if Phillipa decided that they couldn’t
come in? She had seen girls turned away
before, what if it was there turn this time.
Phillipa glanced up at them again, a slight frown on her face.
“Go on.” She
ordered, stepping out of the way and allowing them through the gates.
“Thank god
for that,” Steph commented, “was sure the bag wasn’t going to let us in this
time.
“Shhhhhh!”
Karen hissed in response, turning fearfully to look back at Phillipa, “she may
hear you.”
“I’m not
scared of her!”
“Bollocks
Steph, you are just as scared as the rest of us.” Mel commented, Karen nodding
her head in response.
Reaching
the cloakroom they started to take off their coats to reveal their skimpy
outfits underneath.
“Martin!”
Karen called out in joy, as she noticed that her favourite Floor Guy was there.
“Sweetie!”
he replied, rushing over to give her a huge hug and a kiss.
There were
two Floor Assistants in CD:UK, Martin and Rachel, it was their job to keep
control of the audience inside the studio and more than anything make sure that
they were dancing and looking like they were enjoying themselves. According to them the whole survival of the
record industry depended on the audience reaction at CD:UK, if everyone was up
and dancing it made people want to go out and buy the records…Mel had never
been sure of this theory, but wasn’t one to argue.
“Here let
me take your bags,” he smiled, taking all their luggage off them, hanging it up
in the cloakroom and giving them their tickets. “Now you know where you are going?” he teased.
Laughing
they left the room, going back outside and through the door on the right of the
building. It was quite a walk up to the
warm up room, there were several flights of steep stairs with a security guard
planted at the top of each level, making sure that they didn’t go running off
to where they shouldn’t.
“Ooooh it’s
Ant!” Karen called out excitedly, as her eyes ran along the TV stills adorning the walls and she found her favourite
photo of Ant and Dec.
Steph
rolled her eyes, “I swear Karen only comes here to stalk around the studio
after Ant,” she commented, “she doesn’t care about seeing a1 at all.”
Karen
ignored her comment, her eyes still fixed back on Ant as they continued to make
their way up the stairs. She had always
fancied Ant, ever since PJ and Duncan had released their first single all those
years before – in all honesty when it came to Ant or a1 it was a pretty close battle.
Reaching
the top of the stairs they entered the large lounge bar. There was a wide-open space in front of
them, with a table and hi-fi system stood at one end. The outside of the room was lined with comfy chairs and sofas
with a huge bar lining the walls right near the door… unfortunately this was
always shut for the CD:UK warm ups.
“You think
we can hide in the toilet?” Mel muttered, as she noticed Danny stroll in, she
was desperate to get out of the warm up dancing, especially seeing as she had
only seen Danny a few days earlier. Every
promo they’d end up having to see him at least twice as he did the warm up for
all of the main pop programmes.
However it
was too late to hide, Danny had spotted them and was making his way over.
“Girls!” he
yelled in excitement, coming over to join them in their little circle, “looking
gorgeous I see.” He nodded at them approvingly, Danny’s number one priority was
always to come in and scope around for girls to chat to, it wasn’t him being
sleazy, it was more part of his act.
Before they had had chance to respond to his chat, he was off talking to
the next group of girls, slowly making his way over to the table.
Jumping up
on it enthusiastically, he grabbed his microphone and introduced himself to the
audience, most of whom weren’t listening and were still talking excitedly with
their friends.
“OI” he
yelled loudly, “we haven’t got long to do this so stop mucking around.”
Immediately
the room fell silent as everyone turned to look at him.
“That’s
better,” he observed, “right we have only half an hour down her to warm you up
and then we’ll be going into the studio.
Today you will be seeing a1 and the Sugababes.”
A few
cheers echoed around the room, followed by a few boos.
“We’ll have
no boos in here please, you have to pretend to like all of the bands whether
you do or not.”
Leaning
over the hi-fi he turned on the new Sugababes single, “right, I want to see you
all move.”
Reluctantly
Mel began to move her body slightly, she felt like such a fool all around her
people were throwing themselves into their own little routines, but as usual
she couldn’t get into it, she felt exposed, Danny seemed to be peering straight
at her.
The next
moment Rachel, the second Floor Assistant, appeared behind her, her arms held
high above her head, grooving to the music.
Mel snapped to attention, she knew what happened when Rachel spotted
people not dancing.
“Stop the
music Danny!” Rachel yelled, bursting her way through the crowd and marching
over to where Danny was still standing on his table, “there are people not
dancing.” She pointed to a girl on her left, who was standing still with her
arms crossed.
“Oi! Why aren’t you dancing?” Danny asked,
pulling a face at her.
She
shrugged her shoulders, “dunno,” she replied in her broad Essex accent.
“Dunno?”
Danny said back at her, putting on a ridiculous accent to mimic her. “Well if you’re not here to not move, if you
don’t want to dance then get out.”
The girl
jumped at the stern tone of his voice and immediately uncrossed her arms.
“Right,”
Danny called, his cheery voice returning, “hope you girls have all shaved your
arm pits this morning cos I want a burst of applause in 3, 2, 1.”
Everyone
around her immediately raised their hands in enthusiastic applause.
“Make sure
you are clapping above your heads,” he advised, “if you clap down at your
waist, from behind it looks like you boys are doing something else if you know
what I mean”, he laughed to himself at the joke that he made every single time,
for some reason it still seemed to amuse him.
“Blondie,”
he called out to a girl standing right in front of them, “show them some
applause.” He thrust his microphone at the blonde girl who dissolved into a fit
of giggles.
“Right, we
are going to be moving down into the studio now, so if you can all make your
way slowly to the door we’ll start moving you back down the stairs.”
As usual
his words were ignored and most of the girls in the room pushed their way to
the door, all wanting to be the first out of the door. They pushed their way down the stairs,
everyone desperately trying to cling onto friends before they got crushed in
the stampede. Reaching the bottom they
made their way back through the cloakroom and out into the studio corridor.
Mel
breathed a sigh of relief, they were right near the front of the queue which
was always good, it meant that when they got let into the studio they got first
pick on where to stand.
A man with
headphones and a large clipboard appeared in front of them, holding his finger
up to his lips and ushering them in through the large studio door. “Right move in very quietly.”
The queue
tiptoed its way into the studio, the three girls walking quickly over the
camera leads to make their way to the front of the audience line around the
SMTV sofa, this was always the first link of the show, they’d have to stand
here while SMTV finished and the line up for CD:UK was announced.
Mel hugged
herself with joy as she noticed all of a1 sat on the sofa directly in front of
her, all watching Samantha Mumba’s new video that was playing on the monitors
next to them. Looking up Chris noticed
them first, giving them a little grin and a wave.
“And that
was the new video from Samantha Mumba,” Dec spoke into the camera as the video
finished playing, “we’d like to thank a1 who joined us on the show this morning
and you can catch them performing their new single later on CD:UK,” he pointed
his arm towards a1 and the kids stood behind him burst into applause.
“Yeah
thanks guys,” Cat repeated, “Ooooooooh and look who’s just sneaked in, it’s the
CD:UK audience.”
This was
the point where Danny always started jumping up and down like a complete loon
in front of them, he was standing just out of camera shot, his arms waving
wildly, getting them to clap and cheer so loud that they couldn’t hear a word
that Cat was saying.
“OK we’re
cutting to a break.” Danny called out, as the sound in the studio died down,
“audience we need you over there,” he yelled loudly, pointing to the stage
behind them.
The
audience began to filter away apart from Mel, Karen and Steph who were grabbing
a few moments with a1 before they were whisked away to get ready for their
performance.
“Want a
polo?” Chris asked, digging deep into this pocket and presenting a packet to
Mel.
“Sure,” she
replied, gratefully accepting the sweet on offer.
“Can I have
one?” Mark asked.
“No, girls
only,” Chris commented playfully, screwing the packet up tightly so Mark
couldn’t get to it.
Ben ambled
over, “ooooooh can I have a sweet?” he asked.
“Sure,”
Chris replied, producing the packet and letting him take one.
“How come
he’s allowed one?” Mark asked indignantly.
“Like I
said, girls only.” Chris replied grinning.
“GIRLS!!!!!!”
a voice bellowed from behind them, “we need all audience over here please.”
“Think
we’ve been caught,” Karen commented, grabbing her friends by the arms and
pulling them towards where they were supposed to be, “we’ll see you guys
later,” she called back to them.
They
reached the place where the rest of the audience were standing in front of Ant,
Dec and Cat who were already positioned on the stage waiting for the opening
link.
“I’m red,
I’m red, I’m tizer head, I’m fizzy fizzy fizzy refresh your head, Tizer
sponsors CD:UK.” The opening music
echoed around the studio and Danny called them to put their hands in the air
and to start cheering loudly, again the link that was happening in front of
them couldn’t be heard above the sounds of their applause.
“Ok, great
guys,” Danny commented as they finished.
“What’s
going on now then?” Steph asked in confusion, looking around her.
“We are
showing a pre recorded performance from last week at the moment,” Danny filled
them into what was going on, “then we’ll be cutting to the prize stage, so I
need some of you over there and some of you to stay here.”
The
audience began to split into sections, moving around between the two areas of
the studio, Rachel appeared next to them, pushing them out of the way of a
crane camera that had appeared right next to them.
“Its always
so mad in here,” Mel commented, as she accidentally stood on the foot of the
bloke standing next to her.
“Well lets
just stay here, I think a1 are on after the prize bit.” Karen replied.
The pre
record finished and the prize stage irrupted into applause as Ant and Dec
started to do the link for the prize giveaway.
“Where are
a1 going to be?” Steph hissed.
“Well they
are setting up this stage over here,” Karen replied, pointing to the stage at
her left.
The girls
all agreed and moved to the stage before anyone else spotted what was going on,
taking their place triumphantly on the front row.
As the
prize link finished the rest of the crowd gathered around them, Danny taking
advantage of the ad break and positioning everyone where he wanted them.
“OK guys,
please welcome on stage, the Sugababes.”
Mel’s heart
sank, a1 weren’t going to be on this stage at all. They had got it wrong.
The
Sugababes stepped onto the stage, taking their positions ready for when Cat had
done the link leading back in from the break.
The music
started. Mel really did like the
Sugababes, they were a fantastic band, and normally she would have been happy
to groove away to them – but they weren’t a1.
During the performance her eyes swept round the room, trying to work out
when and where the boys would be.
“I think
it’s going to be that stage,” she whispered to the others, nodding at the stage
right across the other end of the studio.
“We’ll
never make it over there in time.” Karen admitted, noticing how the people
behind them would turn round and reach the other stage long before them.
Looked like
they’d have to admit defeat. The song
finished and immediately the crowd turned round and moved across to the other
stage, leaving Mel, Karen and Steph stranded at the back, desperately jumping
up and down in an attempt to see the boys as they came on stage.
“I’m not
having this,” Steph retorted, linking arms with her two friends and dragging
them over to the side of the studio.
“Martin?”
she asked, as she reached the friendly Floor Assistant, “we’ve come all this
way to see a1 and now we are stuck at the back, would you mind getting us to
the front.”
He grinned
at them, and taking Steph by the hand pulled the girls through the crowd and
stood them on the front row.
“Make sure
you dance your socks off, or Rache will be after me,” he laughed as he left
them.
Christian
immediately spotted Mel in front of him and gave her a small smile, she grinned
back, hoping to god that she didn’t look as daft as she felt.
As Cat
finished the link introducing them the music started up and Mel began to move
to the music, as usual completely transfixed by Christian. She never even noticed the others were
there, it was him and nobody but him.
As he began
to sing his verse she felt herself shiver at the sound of his voice, it filled
every inch of her, making her feel warm and the hairs on the back of her neck
stood up.
He fixed
his eyes on her and stared, a restful look on his face, it was almost as if he
could see exactly what she was thinking and what she was feeling, her soul was
open and exposed to him yet she didn’t mind.
Fixing her eyes to his she stared back, her body completely taken over
by his eyes and the sound of his voice, the crowd disappeared, it was just her
and Chris, standing in a room completely by themselves.
She heard a
faint ringing sound in her ears.
He looked
away, and smiling at the crowd around him, walked off the stage.
His hold
over her broken, the faint sound suddenly became louder, echoing all around her.
Turning she
noticed that everyone had begun to clap wildly – hesitantly she reached her
hands up above her head and joined in.
He had
left, he had gone.