Tickets now on sale for Lightyears + Mystery Jets

Tickets are now on sale for The Lightyears’ gig with the Mystery Jets on Thursday 21 August at the Camden Barfly.

The week-long pre-sale period is over and tickets are now available to the general public. Visit the Barfly website to buy yours – but be quick! These tickets are hot and early indications are that the show may sell out before 21 August. 

The Barfly gig promises to be a cracking night – The Lightyears will be coming out of hiding to showcase a batch of new songs and share a stage with one of the country’s top indie acts before they rock the main stage at Reading Festival. Don’t miss out!

Queen’s College – London – 25/07/08

How was it for us?

This gig was set up to raise money for Cancer Research UK and we were booked as the headline act. It’s one of the few times we’ve shared a stage with hip-hop body poppers and belly dancers, all on the same bill. Extraordinary. Anyhow, unfortunately our set was cut a bit short due to over-running so we had to keep it snappy – Beat Alive, Sleepless, Emily and This House Will Burn. We were shouted back on for an encore and, at the request of the compere, got everyone up and dancing with Blue Suede Shoes. 

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.

Lightyears to support Mystery Jets

The Lightyears have just been booked to support the Mystery Jets at Camden Barfly on Thursday 21 August.

Tickets go on sale on Monday 4 August but Lightyears fans are being given the exclusive opportunity to get in there before the general public. Pre-sale tickets will be available online for a week from next Monday 28 July – keep an eye on www.TheLightyears.com for details of how to get yours.  

The Mystery Jets have enjoyed a string of Top 40 hits since hitting the mainstream in 2005 and this will be a rare opportunity to see them in an intimate venue just two days before they hit the main stage at Reading Festival. 

The LYs will be fresh from a sell-out stadium gig in front of Manchester United and just a couple of weeks away from playing the Time Out Festival in Union Square, New York.  

The Barfly gig has been put together to raise money for international development charity VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas). Watch this space next Monday for details of how to nab your pre-sale tickets…

Goring & Streatley Regatta – Streatley, Berkshire – 19/07/08

How was it for us?

Bit of a hectic beginning to our Regatta gig this year – when we set up our gear, no sound was coming out of my keyboard and I couldn’t figure out why. Funnily enough, the exact same thing happened to me last year at the Regatta. Must be some kind of rural curse. Anyhow, 10 minutes passed and we still couldn’t figure out the problem. A big crowd was forming and, in fact, it seemed to be increasing in size with every minute that we didn’t play! I was a bit concerned that we’d have to scratch the whole thing when, mercifully, my equipment came to life, a piano chord echoed out over the Thames and a huge cheer erupted from the audience. We’d lost a bit of time so we hastily had to knock a couple of songs on the head and bash through a high-energy, no-nonsense set – Beat Alive, Sleepless, Emily, This House Will Burn, Brightest Star and The Last Night. The weather was gorgeous (for our set at least!) and the Pimms kept a-coming. All in all, a rather fine afternoon by the river. Terrific steak sandwiches too.

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.

LYs to play Time Out Festival in New York

The Lightyears have just been booked to play in front of 4,000 people at the 2008 Time Out Back To School Blowout in Union Square Park, New York, on Sunday 14 September.

The Blowout is held as a welcoming party for the Big Apple’s massive student population as they return to the city for the beginning of the academic year. Presented with Virgin Megastore, New York University and the Union Square Partnership, the event will be held in the Square’s south plaza and, along with The Lightyears, will feature four of America’s hottest new signed bands.

This will be the band’s third trip to the States in the last two years. Since November 2006, the LYs have built up a loyal following in the Philadelphia area, appearing on national radio station WXPN and playing sell-out shows in various venues in Pennsylvania.

For tales of high jinx in the USA, see Chris Lightyear’s 2006 and 2007 US Tour Blogs…

Legendary people, legendary night…

I woke up this morning to a scene of quite riveting oddness.

First of all, I was slumped unceremoniously on a couch upon which I had never slept before. Secondly, the person curled up next to me was not the person who had been curled up next to me when I cascaded inevitably into slumber at (I can only guess) around 8am this morning. Thirdly, I could see a miniature motorbike and sidecar in the adjoining room. There were dogs everywhere. Finally though, and perhaps most importantly, John was sitting in the middle of the room, in front of an Xbox, playing Pro Evolution Soccer on a tiny electronic drum-kit.

Many people waking up to a scenario of this description could be forgiven for concluding they had accidentally stumbled into some kind of postmodern circus. I, however, knew better.

This was the morning after a party at Neil’s House.

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Let me bring you up-to-speed. Last night we headlined the Woodcote Rally. This was our second year playing the Rally and the crowd were as up for it as ever. 

When we arrived for soundcheck, the sun was shining and a decent crowd was forming. I was relieved because the sky had been looking a little macabre up until that point and the weather can pretty much make or break an event like this. I was therefore pretty dismayed when, 15 minutes before we were due to hit the stage, the sun disappeared and a cavalcade of enormous, brooding grey clouds swept in and squatted directly over the festival site. Then, ineluctably, came the rain. To their credit, a decent contingent of loyal LYs fans remained camped out in front of the stage underneath umbrellas, but things were nevertheless looking a bit grim.

Still, somebody was evidently smiling on us because when we hit the stage, out came the sun. Or maybe we just have that effect these days. Whatever the explanation, it turned into a really quite splendid evening and the crowd was swelling by the minute. We opted for a high energy, upbeat start, opening with She’s The One, Beat Alive, Good Time Back and Sleepless. A significant portion of the crowd were fans who’ve been following our music for a couple of years so we were careful to chuck in lots of LYs classics – Miles Away, Filmstar, Gimme Some, Banana Republic and Emily. We mixed in some newer songs too for good measure, playing Put The Gun Down, Brightest Star and Run.

Later on, once the crowd were well-oiled with local ales and/or cherry coke, we hit the stage again with Johnny on bass guitar and bashed out an hour of kicking covers. Moshing a-plenty, I’m telling you. Everyone danced like lunatics as the sun went down and I think it’s fairly safe to say a good time was had by all.

The reverberating calls for an encore brought us back onstage and, as we were about to launch into an Elvis number, a lady at the side of the stage yelled for my attention. I knelt down to hear what she was saying and discovered she was making a request for something by Queen. We’d played Don’t Stop Me Now earlier in the set but she was pretty insistent and, well, we don’t like to disappoint. I racked my brains and suddenly remembered that we once played We Will Rock You at a festival with Drum Club and, whilst expecting George to just conjure up the lyrics on a whim without any preparation might have been a bit rich, I figured it would go down really well. And it did. George remembered every word (of course he did – he has a talent for that) and Tony got all the kids in the crowd to come forward and drum the iconic We Will Rock You rhythm on the stage. A cheeky bit of improvisation there.  

With the gig done and all our gear packed down it was time to begin the post-show revelry – which brings me neatly on to the party at Neil’s House. In case you’ve never met Neil, here’s a quick summary – Neil is a front-runner for The Greatest Person Who Has Ever Lived. He and Vron throw legendary shin-digs and last night they very kindly offered up their house as the venue for the after-party. 

I’ll spare you the gory details but, suffice it to say, the night involved a lot of singing, a fair amount of people falling asleep in flower beds, a crack team of undercover agents mercilessly raiding Vron’s boutique wine collection (sorry Vron!) and Neil cooking a seemingly endless stream of delicious food. 

Legendary people, legendary night.

Think I might have to go for a sly nap. 

Catch ya later pop fans.

Chris Lightyear

Woodcote Rally – Woodcote, Oxfordshire – 12/07/08

How was it for us?

The Rally ’08 was  big success all round – an up-for-it crowd, a fine summer’s evening, top-of-the-range hog roast and a lot of enthusiastic moshing. We played a mix of familiar LYs classics (Miles Away, Banana Republic, Emily, Filmstar etc) and new songs (Good Time Back, Put The Gun Down, Run and Brightest Star) in the first set, following up with a set of bangin’ covers later on in the evening. Catch up on the full story in my Woodcote Rally Blog.

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.

LYs on the Beeb

We just got back from an interview and live session on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire. The station picked up on us a couple of months ago, around the time of the release of the Peterborough United song, and asked us into the studio to see if we had anything up our sleeves other than football songs. Which, thankfully, we do. 

The Audio Files is BBC Radio Cambridgeshire’s weekly live music show. It’s hosted by Jeremy Sallis who, as it turns out, is a bit of a legend. You can call Jeremy “Jezza” if you like. Which we did. Jeremy had Jason Mraz on his show last week, so we had some fairly big shoes to fill, but I think we did a pretty decent job. During the off-air soundcheck, as we were bashing through a test-run of Emily, Jez had an enormous smile on his face. I haven’t seen a man that happy in ages. I figured at that stage we must have been doing something right.

After the sound-check we were given fifteen minutes of free time, which we decided to spend in The Flying Pig, the local pub. Following a sly half of London Pride and a quick pre-broadcast confab, we bombed it back round the corner to BBC studios for the start of the interview. 

During the show we played three live tunes (Emily, Sleepless and one of our new songs, Run) as well as chucking in a soupçon of delicious banter with Jeremy. Prior to the show we’d had a fairly in-depth debate on the perennial Mars Vs Snickers debate – Jeremy and George championing the notion that, by virtue of its classic status, the Mars Bar is the superior snack; Tony and myself coming down on the side of the peanut chief and former Marathon bar, Snickers. I pointed out that Mars Vs Snickers was a simple parody of your basic Beatles/Stones face-off, at which point George was audacious enough to suggest that a Snickers bar was basically the equivalent of trying to add an extra member to The Beatles – which would of course be pointless. Unless, as Tony pointed out, that extra member was Eric Clapton (Clapton being the peanut of the vintage rock world). If you see what I mean. I was actually mildly disappointed that the debate didn’t get more airtime on the show itself, although I suppose it’s not directly related to the Cambridge music scene.

Anyhow, I digress. We finished our last song, plugged our upcoming gig at London Road Stadium for the Man Utd Vs Peterborough match and, as The Audio Files drew to a close, packed our instruments away. Tony took this opportunity to jump on Jez’s computer and check the status on his latest eBay bid – for a fully pimped-out motor home intended to double as the next Lightyears tour-bus. Meanwhile, as I was wrestling my keyboard back into its case, Jeremy asked me where the bass was coming from during our performances. “Oh,” I replied, “I play it live”. He was shocked. “I assumed it was programmed!”, he replied. I pointed out that most people assume our bass-lines are programmed and that, more importantly, the fact that I play them live whilst simultaneously bashing out complicated piano and vocal lines didn’t necessarily seem to impress the girls in the way that I originally hoped it might. This provided a natural segue into the story of how I once told a girl in a bar that “playing the piano is very much like making love to a beautiful woman”, with little to no apparent irony. 

It’s true. I really did do that.

But that’s another story.

Chris Lightyear

ps. click to listen to The Lightyears BBC Cambridge interview.

BBC Radio Cambridgeshire – Cambridge – 10/07/08

How was it for us?

Back at the BBC. The Beeb. A great institution and one of our spiritual homes – a place where people behave in a thoroughly British manner, there’s always lots of tea for everyone and they let you nip to the pub for a sneaky half before your interview. Jeremy Sallis (“Jezza” to us now) originally asked us into the Radio Cambridgeshire studio back in April after playing the Peterborough United charity single Posh We Are on his show, I think partly out of curiosity as to what we had in our repertoire beyond football club anthems. His weekly music show The Audio Files always features a live band, sometimes local, sometimes national and occasionally international (he had Jason Mraz on last week). We played Emily, Sleepless and new song Run, which seemed to be a particular favourite of Jez’s. There was a bit of chat about our Glastonbury experience, the INDY Awards and our association with Peterborough United – which I’m hoping didn’t dent our popularity in the Cambridge area, given that the two teams are bitter rivals – and everyone went home happy. You can listen again to the interview on the BBC Radio Cambridgeshire website.  

Chris Lightyear

How was it for you?

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

Gig Details

LYs song used in New York theatre soundtrack

Lightyears track Miles Away was recently featured as part of the soundtrack for off-Broadway show Vital Signs at the June Havoc Theatre in New York.

The play, written by the Pulitzer-nominated Jane Martin, interweaves the stories of six characters through pivotal points in their lives. The piece is composed of over 30 monologues, each around two minutes in length, and Miles Away was used to provide a musical link between the various scenes.

The production, which ran from 13-15 June, was staged by the Plays for Progress Theatre Company, an organisation with the aim of using the art of theatre to promote social change. Plays For Progress believes that investing in children and youth is crucial to creating a better society and providing more equitable opportunities for everyone.

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