When 17-year-old college student Nancy Dinan sent a video performing a cover version of a Joy Division classic to Peter Hook on Facebook it was on a whim. But, to her shock, the music star was left so impressed he invited her to join him on stage for two huge gigs.
Nancy, from Gatley, made her professional stage debut at the recent Joy Division Orchestrated concerts alongisde Peter Hook and the Manchester Camerata. She wowed fans with her ethereal take on some of the Manchester band's most iconic songs including Transmission, She's Lost Control and New Dawn Fades at Manchester Apollo and the London Palladium.
Incredibly, Nancy, who is studing for her A-levels, had never performed in front of more than a college audience in her life before the gig. And it all came after she took a punt on sending her cover version of Transmission to Hook on his Facebook page.
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Nancy, from Gatley, said: "It's still crazy to me what has happened, I just can't believe it. I've never performed at anything major before in my life - the most I've sung to is around 100 people at college."
At the end of the show in Manchester, Hooky revealed to the thousands in the audience that it was Nancy's debut to audible gasps from the crowds. He said: "I'm delighted to say this was her first professional performance. She's 17."
Now, Nancy has shared there was a special reason that she wanted to share her music with Hook. She recorded Transmission with her father Andrew Dinan, who tragically died suddenly aged 50, in May this year.
He had been recording his own Irish folk album with Jim Richardson but died just weeks before it was ready to be released. Nancy has now made it her mission to try and get her beloved dad's music heard by as many people as possible.
Nancy says: "My dad loved Joy Division and I loved Joy Division and we recorded our take on Transmission on his album.
"But dad passed away just a week before the masters came through and so I thought in his absence I had to take over. He didn't have management or anything like that, so I thought it wouldn't hurt to just send it through to Peter Hook.
"I didn't know how to contact him so I literally just Facebook messaged him. I was stunned when he replied with his agent's details and said that he liked the track and wondered if I wanted to come down to a show.
"I messaged him just to share it. I would never, ever have expected all this. He said would you like to come down and do Transmission for the Orchestrated gigs. It was crazy.
"I met him and he said would you like to do more songs than Transmission and that we'd have to see what else I could do so I went home and learned them."
She is currently at Aquinas College in Stockport in her final year of A-levels. She says her friends can't quite believe what has happened either.
She smiles: "It sounds mad but I've got all my posters up in my room and my Joy Division poster was the first I bought. So when I randomly texted everyone to say 'guess what I'm doing?' it felt so unbelievable.
"I'm so glad that they were all able to come and see me at the Apollo show. They understood the gravity and I admit I was terrified when I first walked out on stage.
"I just thought, if you can get through the first song without messing up you will be alright. Once that was done I started to enjoy it and with the audience there it was such a buzz, especially at the end when Love Will Tear Us Apart was played again."
Nancy is still coming to terms with the loss of her dad after his sudden death six months ago - and the family are still waiting for medics to give them answers on how he died. She said: "It was a complete shock, he wasn't ill, he was in the middle of a degree and it felt so unfair, he's worked really hard on his album and had so wanted to have a copy in his hands."
She says performing at the concert was all in honour of her dad. And her one wish was that it had been him up on stage, not her.
She says: "His whole life was music. I feel sad that I've played a gig bigger than him after he worked his whole life for it- but honestly, this was for him.
"I would have loved it to be him playing that gig, not me. I'd give anything for it be me watching him, but it was all for him."
Nancy lives with her mum in Gatley, but would regularly visit her dad in Chorlton to practice the album together. She says: "We had a lovely relationship, I loved him so much. The album was our special place and music is what allowed us to see each other as much as we did."
Nancy is hoping to go to university next year, with plans to study philosophy and politics and dreams to one day be a university professor. She says: "I love music, but I didn't think I'd ever get lucky enough to do that for a career so I had always planned to go to uni."
And Nancy says she can't thank Peter Hook enough for inviting her on stage. She said: "He has been so unbelievably supportive. I was so nervous and felt like I couldn't do it but he told me not to hold back. It was his belief in me that helped me to do the gigs."
You can hear Nancy's cover of Transmission, and find Andrew Dinan and Jim Richardson's album, Inside Out, on Spotify here.
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