A HOTEL is standing by its decision not to pay a tribute band which failed to rock the house.

The Pines Hotel, in Clayton-le-Woods, near Leyland, hosted a talent night on Saturday (January 12) which featured a band, J5, from Beverley, East Yorkshire, that claimed to be a tribute band to the Jackson Five.

But as the all-girl group performed, guests who had paid to watch the show were unimpressed and asked the management to bring back the other performers, including Preston soul star Stephen Bayliss.

Hotel manager Alan Frew said: "We were faced with a very unpleasant dilemma.

"The artists were not a tribute band, they neither looked nor sounded like the unforgettable original Jackson Five. Only two of the artists were singers and none were musicians.

"We have an obligation to provide the highest quality entertainment to our guests and if we advertise a tribute show, the entertainment should reflect this."

The girls in the band were un-contactable at the time of going to press but group member Joanne Robinson was reported in The Sun newspaper on Wednesday as saying bosses at The Pines had said that they were not only poor performers but had been dubbed racist by some guests.

The girls, who were expecting to be paid £650 for the performance, had blackened their faces and wore Afro wigs as part of their act.

Mr Frew denied that any of the audience had called the girls racist, and added: "The Pines Hotel booked this show in good faith regardless of the artists' sex or origin, the fact being these artists were not to our normal high standards of reputation."

Lancashire Trading Standards said: "If the band had marketed themselves as recreating the sound and look of the Jackson Five band and turned up looking and sounding nothing like them, then the hotel has grounds for not fulfilling the contract.

"But I would expect somebody booking such acts to have done some research."