Glastonbury Festival – Somerset – 27/06/08

How was it for us?

The legendary Small World Stage was the venue for our second Glasto gig of 2008. Run by a folk superhero named Pony, Small World is solar-powered and regularly appears at festivals all across the country. The mood at the Friday show was chilled compared to the previous evening, probably due to a combination of the later hour and the insane amount of chai tea the audience had consumed. We responded with an intimate, ballad-heavy set featuring songs like Miles Away, Home For The Weekend and Fine. It wasn’t all downbeat though, with new songs Put The Gun Down and Good Time Back getting first and second airings respectively. For the second time at Glastonbury we moved out into the crowd and performed Gimme Some completely unplugged, which is about as “festival” as you can get. Then we drank lots of chai tea. But I spiked mine with whiskey. Tasted a bit weird. I guess milk and spirits don’t necessarily mix.

Chris Lightyear

How was it for you?

Were you there? Got an opinion? Want to write a review? Hit the comments box at the foot of the page.

Gig Details

Tickets are no longer on sale for this event.

Glastonbury Festival – Somerset – 26/06/08

How was it for us?

The wonderful folks at the Green Fuse Stage, who gave us our first ever Glastonbury gig back in 2005, had bought themselves a sexy new pink tent this year, wheeled in their trusty white piano and booked a programme of live music lasting the length of the festival. We had a cracking gig there on Thursday night. Festival weather was stunning most of the weekend, but the one major downpour coincided precisely with this gig and we were almost washed away by the miniature Niagara that came cascading down from the roof of the tent onto the front of the stage. Not to be deterred, we knocked out an hour’s worth of rocking acoustic numbers, including a new tune called Good Time Back. By the end of the set the whole crowd was up and dancing, and George even ventured off the stage to join them for a sneaky boogie. 

Chris Lightyear

How was it for you?

Were you there? Got an opinion? Want to write a review? Hit the comments box at the foot of the page.

Gig Details

Tickets are no longer on sale for this event.

Earls Court – London – 25/06/08

How was it for us?

The A&AD Design Conference in Earls Court Exhibition Centre was sponsored by Blyk as, to a certain extent, are The Lightyears. Today they put the two parties together in the form of a half hour acoustic set on the Blyk stand at the conference. We played a largely upbeat set to people who looked as though they’d been walking around all day, but who seemed to enjoy it nonetheless! We even managed to sneak in a first play of Chris’s new song ‘Good Time Back’.

George Lightyear

How was it for you?

Were you there? Got an opinion? Want to write a review? Hit the comments box at the foot of the page.

Gig Details

Tickets are no longer on sale for this event.

12 hours ’till Glastonbury…

I am writing this on the tube, which is a first for a Lightyears blog. It’s like being a proper Londoner. Except, if I was a proper Londoner, I guess I’d be wearing a pearly suit and carrying a banana. But in lieu of those things, a MacBook and a hoodie will have to do.

Just been listening to the recordings from a rehearsal we had yesterday at Lightyears HQ in Clapham. Tony came up for the afternoon and we blitzed some new material – 11 songs between us. I had the most. The lion’s share, in fact. I’d written five, the other two had both written three. I’m not making a point. Just saying. I’d written more. Doesn’t make me a more important band member or anything.

Anyway, we bashed through all of the songs individually then picked a couple to stick in the set at the Earl’s Court gig today and ultimately at our Glastonbury shows tomorrow and Friday (incidentally, we’re leaving for Glasto in less than 12 hours. Getting pretty excited. Weather’s looking reasonable too). 

Here’s a quick rundown of the new stuff:

George’s songs:
– Attack: Foo Fighters meets the Go! Team
– Boy (working title only): Beatles-esque mid-pace number with a cracking refrain
– Unnamed: another of George’s epic ballads… this is something pretty special, heart-wrending vocal melodies, spacious arrangement

(nb. the conclusion I draw from this is that George needs to start naming his songs more efficiently.) 

Tony’s songs:
– Put The Gun Down: mid-pace, bluesy number with a sort of Wild West swagger
– Blue: another song with a swaggering guitar riff but pretty weighty subject matter
– Birthday: a song about turning eight and realising your world has changed forever

My songs:
– Good Time Back: straight up-and-down blues song about having better parties
– Bohemian Dream: stomper about life in a band
– Brightest Star: George and Tony described this as “the single”
– A Million Voices: still needs some work, I think… a song about realising your potential
– If You’ll Have Me: possibly the only song I’ve written that could be song by Ella Fitzgerald

We rehearsed two of the tracks to performance standard – Good Time Back and Put The Gun Down – and, if you come see us at the festival, you’ll hear them in the set. Hopefully by that point we’ll have had a chance to sit down in a field and rehearse up a couple more new ones – provided, that is, that we don’t get distracted by hot pear cider and stilt-walking fire-eating uni-cycling clowns. Which is always a danger at Glastonbury.

Gotta go. This is my stop. 

See you in the Stone Circle for Glastonbury sunrise…

Chris Lightyear

LYs to play in front of European Champions Man Utd

On Monday 4 August The Lightyears will be playing at London Road Stadium for the Manchester United Vs Peterborough United pre-season friendly. The band will be performing in the centre-circle just before kick-off, whilst the two teams train around them.   

The band made their debut performance at London Road on Saturday 3 May at the last match of the season against Darlington and have been invited back to Peterborough’s ground on the strength of their performance that day. Watch of a clip from the gig here.

The Lightyears have a long-standing relationship with Peterborough United following their collaboration with the club on the charity single release of Posh We Are (the PUFC anthem) back in May. The song reached #45 in the iTunes Plus Top 100 Chart.

The Posh were promoted at the end of the 07/08 season and the buzz this created has enabled them to schedule in pre-season friendlies with some of the country’s top clubs including West Ham and, of course, Man Utd.

This is an opportunity for LYs fans to hear a half-hour set of the band’s most familiar tunes played in a stadium setting to a crowd of approaching 10,000 people – surrounded by some of the most famous footballers in the world!

If you’re planning to come along, be aware that this match will sell out quickly. Tickets are on sale now from www.ThePosh.com.

Go on. Come and see Ronaldo kick a football at Tony’s head. Priceless.

Brand new Lightyears website online now

The new-look www.TheLightyears.com is now online with a load of new features aimed at making your Lightyears experience more interactive.

The Lightyears are a busy band with a wide range of audio tracks, videos, pictures as well as Chris’s near-legendary tour blog. All of this stuff is now much easier to get hold of on the new site.

Also new is the ability for users to add their own comments and reviews with the ability to add photos and videos coming soon. If you’ve been to a Lightyears gig recently, check out the Past Gigs section where there are write-ups of gigs along with photos.

If you’re into RSS feeds and Social Bookmarking we’ve got that too. In the address bar at the top of the screen you’ll see an RSS logo which you can use to subscribe to The Lightyears newsfeed (for help click here). Below each story is a list of bookmark buttons so that you can share stories from this website with friends (for help click here).

If all that means nothing to you, you can simply add your email address to the box on the right to get Lightyears news and updates delivered to your inbox.

Finally, keep up to date with The Lightyears on the move by following the band with Twitter, the new social network that has taken America by storm. Like the Facebook Status Update, Twitter tells you what The Lightyears are doing as they’re doing it. Our latest ‘tweet’ is shown in the top left corner of the page. You can subscribe to Twitter here.

Enjoy!

Thailand tour confirmed

The LYs’ return to Phuket in Thailand has now been confirmed for the end of October. Dates will include headlining the P.A.W.S. Charity Gala and a show at The Green Man in Muang.

The band made their first trip to Thailand back in October ’07. The tour lasted just over a week and, by all accounts, was pretty much a life-changing experience. Read Chris’ tour blog here; check out Danny Lightyear’s Thailand photo album here. 

The Lightyears were flown over to Phuket to headline at the annual charity gala for the Phuket Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) and whilst they were there they notched up two additional performances at the Green Man in Muang.

MC of the PAWS gala, Martin Carpenter MBE, commented: “The Lightyears are, without doubt, one of the best bands I have seen play in Phuket during the past fifteen years”.

The boys were delighted to be invited back again for this autumn’s event. And not just because it’ll allow them to stock up on the questionable Thai rum they brought home last time. Although that’s always a perk.

Lightyears land second gig at Glastonbury Festival

The band have secured a second gig at Glastonbury Festival 2008 and will be performing on both the Green Fuse Stage (Thursday evening 9pm) and the Small World Stage (Friday evening 10.30pm). Plus, if you’re shrewd, you might be able to catch them a third time. But keep it under your hat, right…? 

The Green Fuse Stage, in the Greenfields, which hosts the band’s opening performance at this year’s Glastonbury, is windmill-powered – we kid you not.

Similarly, the Small World Stage, also in the Greenfields, is powered by the sun (a touch optimistic for Glasto maybe?!). Both stages are run by organisations who support renewable energy sources; click on the links for more info.

Now, this next news item is hot-off-the-press… at the festival this year the LYs will also be collaborating with Youth Music (based in the Left Field) to be a part of their Build A Band competition. Build A Band has brought together five talented teenagers from across the country who will meet for the first time on Day One of the festival – and be given just a few days to write and rehearse a protest song which they will perform together on Sunday afternoon on the Left Field Stage (where they’ll be sharing a bill with Dirty Pretty Things, the Bluetones and British Sea Power).

The Lightyears have been asked to meet the band on Friday evening at 6pm to give them some tips ahead of their big performance and have a bit of a jam behind the Left Field Stage. If you can find us, you can join us. The event will be filmed and will go live on the Orange festival website just a few hours later. 

This is the band’s third appearance at Glastonbury. If you’re at the festival this year, come hang out with us. If you can surf the web on your mobile phone, keep an eye on our Twitter status on the LYs homepage – this’ll tell you where we are and when! Even better, you can sign up to Twitter on your mobile and receive instant updates by text message, wherever you are (details at www.Twitter.com).

Chris’ Tour Blog: Korea 2008 – online now!

This year, for the third year running, The Lightyears were invited to headline at The Queen’s Birthday Ball in Seoul, South Korea. Chris Lightyear has documented the trip in his LYs tour blog – read up on the band’s Korean adventures here.

The LYs played two gigs whilst in Seoul this year, the first at a “Meet The Lightyears” evening in Itaewon and the second at the ball itself. The theme for 2008 was Phantom Of The Opera and the event, held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel on Mount Namsan, raised an incredible 160 Million KRW. 

The QBB is organised annually by the hard-working BASS committee in honour of the Queen’s birthday, which I think we can all agree is a wonderfully British thing to do. In excess of 500 people attend every year.

Danny Lightyear was diligently snapping away all week and you can check out his photos by clicking here.

Everybody. Hates. Keyboard players.

So, Turnkey – London’s biggest music store and most evil all-powerful industry dominator (kinda like the IKEA of music shops) – is shutting down. It’s gone into receivership. Which means they’re selling all their gear off at ludicrously low prices. And the capital’s enormous army of musicians are flocking to Tottenham Court Road to snatch their piece of sweet Turnkey pie before the magical gate of opportunity slams shut forever.

George and John spent quite some time this morning trying to persuade me to pop into town with them and bathe in the juicy fountain of sopping wet bargains Turnkey has to offer before it finally closes tonight.

“Come on mate… it’ll be madness! They’re selling everything at HALF TRADE price! Guitars, drums, pianos – everything!”

They said.

“Think of the bargains you could pick up. I mean, you may own seven keyboards already but there’s always room for more. They might even have a rare keytar going cheap for your museum!”

They said. 

But here’s the thing. Everybody. Hates. Keyboard players. I know this. I’ve accepted it. Which makes it all the more surprising that, at 1pm this afternoon, I found myself standing forlorn inside the ravaged husk of a warehouse that was once the buzzing hub of the Turnkey empire almost ready to weep at the horrific paucity of keyboards and keyboard-related paraphernalia on offer.

Sorry. I exaggerate. There was NOTHING THERE at all. George tried to placate me by pointing out how great it would be if we bought this knock-off 16-track Behringer multi-digital desk thing, although he should know me well enough to understand that I’m unlikely to find much solace in one of those. John, meanwhile, who had picked up a £2500 bass guitar for less than 800 quid, was struggling magnanimously to cover his sheer joy at the shrewd purchase he’d made. 3 hours out of my day – and nothing to show for it.

Like I say, I’ve accepted that I’m at the bottom of the musical food chain. It was just a bit heinous to have it shoved so vaingloriously down my throat.

I will have my revenge.

Chris Lightyear

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