LYs land on Korean soil

Tuesday 30 May, 2pm (32,000 feet above sea level, Western Europe):
We are cruising over Brussels, at a speed of around 850kph, quaffing a welcome round of bubbling champagne courtesy of Air France. We toast the beginning of our Korean trip, and spirits are high. Not least because Big Momma’s House 2 is being shown on the onboard entertainment system. I have a feeling this tour could be something rather special…

Wednesday 31 May, 8.30am Korean time (Incheon International Airport, Seoul, South Korea):
The Lightyears have landed in South Korea. Our instruments, sadly, have not. Their exact whereabouts remain something of a mystery, which I have to admit is a little troubling. After checking our baggage at Heathrow we were ordered to take the instruments down to Check-In Gate X, which, for those of you who’ve never been there, is rather like turning up in New York and being told to take all your valuables to the Bronx. Check-In Gate X is hidden away at the back of Heathrow Airport and seems to have been abandoned long ago by all facets of civilisation. We asked the steward on duty if he could kindly label our cases with some of those FRAGILE stickers you get at airports, and he looked at us as if we had asked him to put on a dress and dance the Tarantella. It was therefore not altogether a surprise to rock up in Korea 17 hours later and find that our precious instruments were nowhere to be seen. However, after some investigation we learn that, happily, our gear has not been piked by international bandits and is due to be delivered to our hotel within 24 hours.

Shortly afterwards, our driver greets us in the concourse holding a big sign reading “The Lightyears” and this cheers us up no end. He doesn’t speak any English but luckily Tony has done some cramming on the plane and is able to muster a shaky “Anyeong Haseyo” (“Hello”). Our vehicle has tinted windows and a miniature TV screen playing Korean cartoons. Rock and roll.

Wednesday 31 May, 9.30am (Somerset Palace Serviced Residences, Seoul):
Our driver pulls up outside Somerset Palace in Insadong, Seoul, and we take in what is to be our home for the coming week. Let me start by pointing out that the “Palace” part is certainly not misleading. This place is incredible. Eighteen stories of luxury serviced apartments culminating in a landscaped rooftop garden complete with a swimming pool, a fleet of jacuzzis and a jaw-dropping view of the city.

Our rooms turn out to be bigger than my house. Any delusions about throwing the TVs out of the window are immediately dashed because they’re just too massive to lift. Plus there’s six of them. Later we are told that our apartments are costing $1000 a night. Places like this are usually reserved for well-mannered businessmen, but this week they are playing host to the LYs. Our Korean tour has officially been pimped.

Wednesday 31 May, 10.15pm (A restaurant in Insadong, Seoul):
We have been taken out to dinner by our hosts, Amy and Neil, which provides us with an early opportunity to try out our rudimentary Korean on the bar-staff. We thank everyone we meet, profusely, as this is just about all we can say, but it seems to be appreciated. We are actually eating in an Italian restaurant as Amy and Neil have advised us that Korean food is pretty bland and it could be difficult to find anything vegetarian for Tony. From the safe confines of his herbivorous enclave, Tony has challenged us all to try the local delicacy, dog-meat, on the basis that “I would definitely try it if I wasn’t a veggie”. Yeah, whatever. Earlier today we actually saw a restaurateur chasing a tiny dog down the street with a meat cleaver, and that single event put me off the idea somewhat.

After dinner we don our Somerset Palace bathrobes and slippers and head for the hot-tubs. With our combination of shaggy haircuts, jet-lagged expressions and decadent attire we look like four Hugh Heffners out there on the rooftop. Kicking back in a top-of-the range jacuzzi, sipping a cold beer and checking out the mountain temples in the distance, we’re on top of the world. The tour has well and truly begun.

Stay tuned for Part 2…

Chris Lightyear

“Can we have more baby-oil for the girls please?”

Saturday 13 May, 3.30pm (Come Together Festival, Henley, Oxfordshire):
We’ve just come offstage after our set at the Come Together Festival in Henley-on-Thames. Playing nearly an hour’s set before lunchtime left me feeling a little light-headed, but it was a great lark and everyone seemed to have a good time. We met the guys from Wire Jesus, an excellent Reading band who you really should check out if you get a chance (www.WireJesus.com). Oh, and for the record, the Come Together Festival does a mean buffalo-steak wrap. That’s all I have to say.

Thursday 18 May, 1pm (An abandoned warehouse, Brentford, London):
Someone we know who works for a media company has asked George and I to fill in as extras on a Ministry Of Sound music video. As a result, at midday on a Thursday lunchtime we find ourselves underground in an abandoned warehouse off the M4, dressed as pikeys and cheering on two lubed-up bikini-clad dancers who seem to be engaging in some kind of passive-aggressive mating ritual to a thumping house track. Apparently they’re shooting the uncut version later on (featuring a parade of topless Page 3 models), but to our consternation we have to leave early in order to get to a Lightyears gig in Berkshire. Nevertheless, today’s events have allowed me to fulfil a lifelong ambition – to be standing on a darkly-lit film set, surrounded by models, whilst the director yells into a megaphone, “OK, people, can we have more baby-oil for the girls please?”. You just can’t write lines like that.

Friday 26 May, 13.45pm (M1, just north of Birmingham):
We’re on our way to Liverpool to make our second appearance at the world-famous Cavern Club for the International Pop Overthrow Festival. The journey, thus far, isn’t going spectacularly well. Tony is advocating “rounding up all drivers with caravans, at dawn, and shooting them in the face”. Caravan drivers provoke the most violent of rage in Tony. Luckily a couple of Mexican 3-bean wraps and a bottle of lemon-scented sparkling mineral water calms him right down. The north looms on the horizon.

Saturday 27 May, 3am (Matthew Street, Liverpool):
We arrived in Liverpool at about 6pm and made straight for our hotel, a building which is an architectural refugee of the 1970s and makes no bones about it (let’s just say that the TVs run a medley of Upstairs Downstairs, Rising Damp and Mork & Mindy). The chain-smoking proprietor greeted us with the opening gambit “Wow – you look like The Beatles!”, which I initially interpreted as quite a compliment until it occurred to me that she probably says that to every party of eager Southerners she’s about to bill for 120 quid.

The gig at The Cavern was awesome. The IPO Festival is completely free and there are bands playing wall-to-wall, for hours on end, over a period of five days. There was a big crowd in tonight, including some friends of ours from the BBC who are up in Liverpool filming a turn-of-the-century episode of Casualty called Casualty: 1906. Afterwards we spent some time chatting to an impressively coiffeured Finnish band called Flylow and a retro pop act from Switzerland called My Name Is George. Apparently they’ve never actually met anyone called George so hanging out with The Lightyears was a real coup for them. It’s now 3am and we’re wandering around the city centre trying to find the Aachen Hotel, which has definitely moved since we checked in this afternoon.

Saturday 27 May, 8pm (M1, just outside Chester):
We’ve just played our second Liverpool gig of the weekend (at Lennon’s Bar) and are speeding down the motorway for a night’s rest before supporting New Model Army at the Clapham Grand tomorrow. We’re right in the middle of a conversation about how journeys are always quicker on the way back when Tony remembers he left his rucksack in the venue – alongside a £400 iPod, £200 headphones and about 300 Euros in cash from our Alps Tour. The detour adds an hour and a half to our trip. Just as well the tourbus is fully stocked with flapjacks then.

Sunday 28 May, 10pm (The Clapham Grand, London):
Justin Sullivan from New Model Army is currently playing the headline slot at the Darryl Kempster Memorial Gig at the Clapham Grand (in aid of Greenpeace). We played an earlier slot, at about 7pm, to an enthusiastic crowd of hundreds. They’ve even opened the Upper Circle tonight, so there are people chilling out up there as well. I have got lost six or seven times trying to find the dressing room. Rock.

Monday 29 May, 11am (Lightyears HQ, Chiswick, London)
24 hours to go until we jet off to Korea. Before then, we’re playing a slot at the Watlington Festival, which is a good hour and a half’s drive from Lightyears HQ. Which could prove a challenge in light of the fact that George’s car got impounded this morning. In Wandsworth. We left it outside the Clapham Grand last night and when George returned to find it at about 10.30am, it wasn’t there.

It is for this reason that we are currently embroiled in a kind of Lightyears equivalent of the TV show 24. George is Jack Bauer, out on the street fighting international terrorists (a.k.a. the Wandsworth Council Car Pound), and I’m that funny blonde girl at CTU using state-of-the-art government computer technology (a.k.a. Google Maps) to direct him around the city. I’m half-expecting George to arrive at the pound and find the car crushed into a small, sad cube, but fortunately this isn’t the case. Nevertheless, the pirates charge us £200 for the privilege of reclaiming our vehicle.

The sting of this morning’s episode is relieved somewhat by a cracking show at the Watlington Festival. The place is absolutely heaving, and there’s a hardcore of long-haul LYs fans who sing along to all the album tracks and, impressively, the new ones as well. Afterwards we beat a hasty retreat back home, on account of the fact that none of us, not even one of us, has even considered starting to pack for our Korean Tour. Which starts tomorrow morning.

Let’s hope we make it. Watch this space for Part One of the band’s Asian adventure…

Chris Lightyear

Going head-to-head with Liberty X

Saturday 6 May 2006, 6.30am (Lightyears HQ, Chiswick, London):
We don’t have to be in Aberystwyth until 3pm, which should mean not leaving London until about 10 in the morning. Except that Tony has decided we have to set off at 7.30am in order to make it to the Red Lion in Llandyfaelog by midday to watch Crystal Palace in the Championship Play-Off Semi-Finals. And so the day does not start well for me – I care not for Crystal Palace, and I care not for Llandyfaelog. But being in a band is all about compromise, so I put on a magnanimous face and get in the car. Could be a long day.

Saturday 6 May, 12.30pm (The Red Lion, Llandyfaelog, Wales):
Llandyfaelog is not exactly what you’d describe as a metropolis. Or even a polis. I’ve heard that scientists at a university in London have recently developed a perfect sonic vacuum, contained within an isolated room coated in state-of-the-art sound-proofing, which purports to be the quietest place on earth. I bet it’s got nothing on Llandyfaelog. So far the only signs of life we’ve encountered are a couple of sparrows and an ill-proportioned dog.

Soon though, we happen upon the pub and step gingerly inside. Tony has chosen this far-flung corner of Wales because George Whitfield, an old band-mate of his, lives just round the corner. George is yet to make an appearance, however, so we’re still on our own. There is NOBODY in the pub. Indeed, a quick glance around the main room reveals a few children’s toys, a very small television and seemingly no bar – it’s as if we’re in somebody’s front room. In fact, as time wears on I become convinced that it is somebody’s front room. That is until a big bloke in a football shirt turns up and heads through a door we hadn’t previously noticed, returning shortly afterwards with a pint of lager. This guy turns out to be our only fellow punter for the ensuing two hours. Which may be down to him being the only permanent resident of Llandyfaelog.

Saturday 6 May, 1.45pm (The Red Lion, Llandyfaelog, Wales):
The football hasn’t gone well, at least not for Crystal Palace, and so our thoughts turn to food. Tony has promised us a bountiful, rustic pub lunch in return for dragging us out of bed at the crack of dawn to watch his team lose 3-0. You can imagine our consternation, then, when the landlord appears with two plates of stale Tesco value sandwiches containing a pink substance approximating ham and a few pieces of rather sad-looking cheese. And so, with our hunger unsated and Tony looking markedly sulky, we press on to Aberystwyth.

Saturday 6 May, 11.45pm (May Ball, Aberystwyth University, Wales):
It’s nearly midnight, which is when we’re due to start our set. There are at least five stages of music at tonight’s event, and we’re headlining the Marquee Stage, starting about fifteen minutes after Liberty X kick off in the Union Auditorium. A lot of people have headed in to see them, which could affect our numbers. As luck would have it, however, they don’t prove too popular with the crowd and someone in the audience manages to smoke-bomb them before they’ve reached their second song – as a result, the fire alarms go off and hundreds of people come streaming out of the Union in a mass evacuation. This is our chance. Tony OKs it with the soundman and we jump onstage fifteen minutes early. By the time we’ve hit the closing chords of our opening number, we’ve managed to poach nearly a thousand fans from Liberty X and the Marquee is absolutely heaving with people. It’s a great gig and is absolutely packed from beginning to end.

Chesney Hawkes is headlining in the Union at the same time as we’re headlining the Marquee, so we miss his set – but we do get to meet him afterwards. I’m surprised by how thin he is, and to be honest he looks like he could do with a good square meal. Nice bloke though. Liberty X haven’t stayed to party with the hardcore, which is perhaps not surprising in the circumstances. Other celebrities kicking around include the Bodyrockers, who you may remember from their 2005 Top Ten hit “I Like The Way You Move”, and Tabby, the Irish guy from X Factor. Now, I don’t wish to propound Irish stereotypes, but this guy has nicked all our booze! When we return to our dressing room after the show, the beer and the vodka has all disappeared, leaving only a half-drunk bottle of Diet Coke and a cheese and tomato sandwich. Since his dressing room is next to ours, and he’s totally plastered, the evidence speaks for itself…

Sunday 7 May, 5.30am (St Andrews Court Hotel, Seafront, Aberystwyth):
We’ve partied hard, and the sun is just coming up. If we want to capitalise on the hotel’s cooked breakfast, which we do, we need to be out of bed in just three hours. Urghsadflsg. Time for some kip.

Sunday 7 May, 1.30pm (M4, England, Civilisation):
It takes a long time to get out of Wales. Aberystwyth is further away from a motorway than any other town in Britain, including John O’Groats. Luckily, we’re still trading on the energy from this morning’s Full English, which, extraordinarily, we all managed to get out of bed for. Once back on English soil, we sing a hearty version of “Land Of Hope & Glory” in celebration of our return home. We have officially conquered Wales and colonised it in the name of LIGHTYEARS. Rock on.  

Chris Lightyear