Aussie Fan Joins Joss Stone On Stage After Video Plea

In an age when an ordinary fan can directly contact their idol with a few deft keystrokes and the click of a mouse, it's easy to default to cynicism when it comes to performer-audience interaction. But dedicated Joss Stone fan Queenie - herself an accomplished singer-songwriter hailing from Melbourne - was determined to capture the attention of the silky-voiced Stone prior to her recent appearance there, going so far as to film an endearing musical plea to the star, replete with cute props and surprisingly polished production values, to perform a duet together:

"I thought that making a video would have more of an impact than simply sending Joss a message,” Queenie says of her motivation for putting together the clip. “It was unclear whether Joss was actually running her social media platforms herself or whether someone else was running them, so I thought a video would be more likely to be passed on to her ... especially if it was something fun and different!”

This could have ended as so many similar stories do - with the video passing into the annals of internet obscurity - but, incredibly, Queenie's humble love letter caught Stone's eye - or, more accurately, Stone's mother's eye - and resulted in the most heartwarming of all follow-ups. With the internationally renowned singer (who was in town for last weekend's Bluesfest and a string of sideshows) on-stage in Melbourne and her committed fan mere metres away, someone's night (or week, probably) was about to get made, in a big way:

"I got everyone I know to tweet and Facebook Joss Stone the link to my video - but turns out it took only one particular tweet to make it happen," Queenie beams of her efforts in getting her message noticed. "The night before the concert, I tweeted Joss' mum the link and she liked it so much that she emailed it on to Joss! Joss had only seen the video that day - and when I called out from the audience, she knew what I was talking about! 

 "When she called me up on stage, I went completely blank! I forgot to even say hello to her because I was so overwhelmed. When I called out, I really did not think that that would lead to me standing on the stage five seconds later - I was totally unprepared. And then when I realised that I had to sing in my state ... I was like, "UH OH! Try to focus! Make sounds come out of your mouth!" 

Still, putting aside whatever jitters Queenie may have felt in her hero's presence, on a scale of stage intrusions from "streaking" to "dancing with Bruce Springsteen", crossing "sing duet with Joss Stone" off the bucket list has to rate pretty highly in anyone's book. She's rightly chuffed with herself, and under no illusion about the likelihood of this kind of lightning striking twice.

"I don't know if I'd be able to pull the same thing off again," she muses, "but it would be pretty cool to sing with Pharrell. Pharrell, if you're reading this - hit me up!"

Stone plays Sydney's Enmore Theatre tonight. Tickets are still available through Ticketek. Queenie has an EP due for release in November, pending her recovery from a vocal injury (presumably not incurred through her duet with Stone) - but in the interim, you can check out her Twitter and Instagram (queenieofsoul) accounts to stay posted.