It's not often that an unsigned band gets a call out of the blue to play a high profile gig in front of thousands of people, but it happened this week to Flavour'd - a young Dublin band who play a mix of soul, hip-hop and funk. Their manager, Kieran Patten, got a call from M People's promoters at midnight last Sunday, on the strength of the Flavour'd demo tape.
"They said `will you guest for us on Tuesday night?' So we went straight into the rehearsal room and stayed there for 24 hours straight, had about six hours' sleep, soundchecked and went on stage. We were absolutely amazed at the reaction from the audience - they were cheering, screaming, hand-clapping, waving lighters during slow songs."
On Thursday they played support in Millstreet and tonight are at the King's Hall in Belfast. Three of the major record companies have been sniffing around the band, and Flavour'd plan to release their debut album - provisionally called Lavish Lifestyle, "after CJ, tongue-in-cheek of course!" - early in the new year.