The first single by Sapphic Russian popsters tATu may have gone straight in at No 1, but their success is shaping up to be short-lived, says Paul MacInnes
Under image: Microskirted young hopefuls try out for tATu's latest pop video on the South Bank, London
In their short pop career, many things have been written about tATu, not all of them complimentary. The Russian pop duo, Lena Katina and Julia Volkova, are after all known more for their apparent sexual orientation than any musical prowess. It is even sometimes alleged that the whole tATu product is nothing but the construct of the girls' manager, Ivan Shapovalov.
The bad press that tATu has attracted has only got worse in the past few weeks after the band's first British tour was cancelled. The rumours suggested it was because of poor ticket sales, with some accounts claiming that only 1,000 fans had paid up to fill the 10,000 capacity Wembley arena. Then, when tATu made their first British appearance in a London branch of HMV yesterday, an expected crowd of 1,000 turned into 350 people as the girls sang, caressed each other, and invited all schoolgirls of 16 or over to appear in their new video.
The deal meant dressing up in school uniform and turning up at Westminster Bridge at 9am this morning. Russian term times are probably different to English ones, which may explain why, of all the legions of young girls who must surely aspire to be in titillating lesbian pop acts, only 13 turned up. The same couldn't be said of tATu, who were missing - as was, it turned out, permission to film a video at all.
The girls who did show up were dressed uniformly in the kind of schoolwear that would only be acceptable in a school run by men, and most probably Russian pop producers. That didn't seem to bother anybody though, especially not the photographers who had also turned up and almost matched the girls one for one.
"I've been up since 7.30", said a disappointed Nikki Davidson, who had come to the 'shoot' with her friend Michele Tyler. "We're big fans of tATu, and we were at HMV when they said to come down. It's the music and the attitude we like, the fact that everyone's scared of them because they're lesbians - parents say you can't watch it.
"I think they're a good thing that had to happen", adds Michele, "But I should have given a call to my agent, to say if it doesn't happen now, we're not coming back later."
Michele was joking about her agent, and the pair hung around for another half hour, smoking fags and chatting with some of the other fans. But while most of the girls looked like normal people in too-short skirts, there were five who obviously were not there simply to show their love for tATu.
"We wanna be MTV girls, we've already got a video", said Charlotte, 16, who looks like she'd glided straight off Pop Idol and, along with five colleagues (one is absent), forms the band 2wice. "We're like an R&B band, but just because we're R&B doesn't mean we don't like pop", she says, though when the other fans suggest a chant of 'we want tATu' the girls run away giggling.
"We're also a dance group, that's called Higher Level", adds Amanda, also 16. "We have to go somewhere else, you know."
Talk soon turns to the whereabouts of Trevor, the promoter of Higher Level, and the man who'd told the girls to make their way to Westminster. Trevor later arrives and immediately makes his way to the sole representatives of tATu's record company, a man and a woman in their 30s, who refuse to give their names. Trevor offers the man a card and says that if they want any schoolgirls he can provide them.
After an hour or so, everybody starts to drift away, apart from the producers who are collecting phone numbers from the fans. It transpires that the video did have a permit, but it was withdrawn overnight for fear of crowding on the riverbank. As it turns out, the council may have overreacted, although in the crazy world of pop you never quite know.
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