We played the 2002 St Kilda Festival.
It was a great gig for us we seemed to be well received. It was a gorgeous day with one of our biggest audiences. Thanks to my mischief and cheek it almost didn't happen.
Below is an email I sent off to some suit in charge of advertising on the official web site. The entire festival was heavily sponsored, in fact the stage we played on (Or should I say almost didn't play on) was centred between 2 Holden Barinas. At the bottom of the Festival Gig guide on the web site was this statement "INTERSTATE ARTISTS STAY WITH NOVOTEL ST KILDA".
Since we knew nothing of this and always Preferred our amply comfortable digs at the Cosmopolitan Motel in Carlisle St I felt a need to question the statement.
We did some research and it turned out that none of the interstate artists we knew were staying at the Novotel.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi there David,
My name is Ian and I'm playing in a band called The Drugs at the St Kilda Festival.
Out of curiosity I visited the site and must say it's really well composed.
Very informative and self-explanatory.
I did notice however that "Interstate artists stay with Novotel St Kilda" and wondered how we go about checking in, as we were un-aware of this service and have booked accommodation elsewhere.
If the complimentary "Sponsored" accommodation at the Novotel isn't available to us, would you be so kind as to change the sentence to read "Interstate artists (WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE DRUGS) stay with Novotel St Kilda"

We are not so deluded as to assume that we'll each be driving away in a Holden Barina, with boot loads of Cadbury's products, Schweppes drinks with Hahn chasers and sadly we realise that it would be hard to finance such a great event without some corporate prostitution.

However if we do not benefit from the service at all we feel it is false advertising and nothing short of fraudulent.

Yours sincerely
Ian Baddley

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(My first ever reply!!!! of sorts)

The Suit panicked and told the organizer that he was uncomfortable with the band playing. The organizer called the record label and the record label called me.
We had to promise we'd be on our best behaviour, and we were.
Rather than burn flags and throw paint on the cars that we shared a stage with, we did some advertising of our own. It may have gone over the heads of most of the audience but we got a chuckle out of it.

Hear for yourself:
Novotel Spoof Advertisement
Barina Spoof Advertisement
Cadbury Spoof Advertisement