Local girl done good

So, finally, Kate Winslet won an Oscar. And hoorah for her, I say, because not only is she a damn fine actress but, like The Lightyears, she hails from Reading.

Reading isn’t generally considered to be “on the map” when it comes to famous sons and daughters, although it did also spawn Kenneth Branagh, Ricky Gervais and Dawn French. Plus, according to Tony (who perhaps ought not to be trusted on these matters as he does enjoy a good caper), Lennon & McCartney played their first ever gig in neighbouring Caversham’s Fox & Hounds pub. 

Anyhow, Kate’s been churning out stellar performances for years and so it’s somewhat ironic that she pre-empted her eventual Academy triumph during her cameo in the comedy series Extras, in which she complained that in order to win an Oscar you had to “do a holocaust movie” – and sure enough it was taking on such a role that appears to have been the clincher! Mind you, I reckon this says more about the prejudices of the Oscars ceremony itself than it does about Kate’s pedigree as an actress.

So I guess these are my official blogger’s congratulations to the delectable Kate for what she herself described as “a dream come true”. May there be many more! And I’m sure when I win my Oscar for playing Chesney Hawkes in his (surely inevitable) biopic, Miss Winslet will return the favour.

To Berkshire’s finest Hollywood export – and proof that the A329M isn’t the only great thing to come out of Reading. 

Chris Lightyear

LYs to headline at world premiere of “Body Gossip”

On Sunday 29 March we’re returning to the London scene for a headline performance at the launch of Body Gossip, a celebrity-endorsed theatre event examining the effects of the “size zero” phenomenon on the nation’s sense of body image.  

The show is taking place at The Hub in King’s Cross – an exciting new venue which describes itself as “a global community of people from every profession, background and culture working at ‘new frontiers’ to tackle the world’s most pressing social, cultural and environmental challenges”.

The brainchild of actress and BBC presenter Ruth Rogers, Body Gossip will comprise 15 real life stories, gathered together from the winning entries of a national writing competition, performed for one night only by a celebrity cast that includes Anne Diamond, Big Brother’s Nikki Grahame and supermodel Jen Hunter. We’ll be hitting the stage once the theatre is finished.

Body Gossip kicks off at 7pm; tickets cost £20. Buy yours soon as this event will sell out!

Click here to buy tickets.

Click here for full details – timings, maps etc.

Click here to find out more about Body Gossip.

South African media praises The Lightyears

Our recent tour to South Africa was one of the highlights of our careers so far. The gigs were superb, the crowds were incredibly receptive and, most importantly, the food blew my mind. 😉

Due to the interest surrounding our release of the song “Johannesburg”, as well as our status as INDY Award winners and our previous international touring adventures worldwide, we attracted quite a bit of press attention whilst we were out there. Follow the links below to read more:

“The Lightyears have crafted a moving indie-pop slow song in Johannesburg…” (read more)
THE ARGUS, CAPE TOWN

“Johannesburg, with it’s strummed acoustic guitars and surprisingly uplifting chorus, appears to be hitting the right notes with locals…” (read more)
iAFRICA.COM

“The real stars of day one, though, are English band The Lightyears, who’ve flown in from London to play the tournament, and blow the marquee apart with a roaring display that sees four encores, and has the police sent to check noise levels dancing in the crowd…” (read more)
RUGBY365.COM

“When The Lightyears hit the stage after Saturday’s rugby and played that first song, I thought the roof of the beer tent was going to fly off! It was without doubt the best party I have ever been to in my life…” (read more)
ROBBIE FLECK, FORMER SA INTERNATIONAL, INTERVIEWED AT CAPETOWNTENS.COM 

“The Lightyears are an internationally-renowned pop-rock band…”
PEOPLE’S POST, CAPE TOWN

“The best band in the world!”
BOBBY SKINSTAD, FORMER SPRINGBOK CAPTAIN

The Lightyears’ International 5-Star Hotel Breakfast Richter Scale

As you will probably be aware if you have been following our band for a while, food is incredibly important to us. We just got back from a storming tour of Cape Town, South Africa, and the many hours spent anticipating, enjoying and rating the various breakfasts on offer has prompted me to create something which I really should have dealt with a long time ago – The Lightyears’ International 5-Star Hotel Breakfast Richter Scale.

Man cannot live on chord sequences alone and when you’re out on the road it is imperative that you are adequately fed, lest your capacity to rock serious ass is threatened by low blood-sugar levels.

In short, eat your heart out Lonely Planet – this is the intrepid explorer’s real guide to eating abroad. Venues are listed in top five order, with number one representing the crème de la crème of hotel breakfasts:   

5. Somerset Palace, Seoul
The Somerset was our first experience of 5-star hotel breakfast-buffet eating and as a result will always hold a special place in our hearts. It has a simple elegance to it and is the only hotel on this list to offer live TV news during your meal. It opens early, at 6am, which is obviously of no use to us until the morning after the gig, during which we have become infamous for turning up at 6am on the dot, still suited, for a post all-nighter nosh-up before crashing into the jacuzzi and, eventually, bed. Pastries are reasonable, eggs are adequate and the bread-toasting machine is a pleasing little gadget, almost Wallace & Gromit-esque in its inventiveness. Slightly suspicious of the little sausages though. Always gotta wonder about the sausages.

4. The Laguna Beach Resort, Phuket
The Laguna scores points early on for effectively being outdoors. It rates highly on the Yoghurt Counter too for variety of flavours and from what I can remember also serves decent baked beans. Beans are often a problem when one is abroad – some hotels consider themselves too chic to serve baked beans (this is obviously ridiculous) and others go for a sort of posh bean medley containing butter beans, kidney beans, mung beans and the like, which I’m not averse to per se but which if I’m honest only over-complicates a classic breakfast staple. The Laguna also turned a blind eye to us appearing for our morning meal dressed only in matching hotel bath-robes and sunglasses, for which I believe the staff deserve a special commendation. Oh, and where else but in Phuket are you joined for breakfast by a dancing, juggling, harmonica-playing elephant? Mind you, I requested “Love Me Do” and received only a blank look in response. One-trick pony, if you ask me. 

3. The Table Bay Hotel, Cape Town
Like Thailand’s Laguna Resort, the Table Bay boasts the accolade of being one of the “500 Leading Hotels In The World”. However, it inches ahead of it’s Phuketian classmate by the skin of its teeth, thanks to a few high-class cherries on the cake that might surprise even the most discerning traveller. How imaginative, I thought, how recherché, to serve freshly roast duck in hoisin sauce for the opening dish of the day! The sushi was a pleasing touch too, although I couldn’t quite stretch to oysters. It’s one of my many travelling mantras that one should avoid eating anything that closely resembles phlegm for breakfast. Oh, and Michael Jackson, Snoop Doggy Dog, Kanye West and Jack Bauer have all dined here (although I doubt Bauer got much eating done – he was probably too busy uploading government schematics to his PDA and de-wiring suitcase nukes using only his eyelids).

2. British Airways Business Class Cabin, International Airspace
Yes, alright, this is technically not a hotel; however, I feel it warrants its place in the Top Five because we had to sleep in it and nice ladies bought us whatever we asked of them without once ticking us off for being immature and in that sense it mimicked my experience of hotels precisely. Plus I have stayed in hotels with less comfortable beds, believe me, and none of them faced the challenge of being 40,000 feet above the ground and hurtling around at 600mph. The thing about this particular breakfast experience was that, well, the attendants had furnished us with fine champagne before we’d even sniffed a soupçon of the food on offer. And a day that starts with champagne can never, ever be a bad day. What followed was a preposterously sumptuous smorgasbord of delights that included quails’ eggs, salmon roe, truffles and fillet steak. And I got to watch The Big Lebowski whilst I was eating. Everybody left happy. 

1. The Grand Hyatt Hotel, Seoul
And so we have a winner. As a hotel, The Hyatt may not have the flare of the Table Bay or the easy charm of the Laguna, but by George it steals the breakfast crown with flying colours. It has a carvery. It has pastries that will melt your face with desire. It covers every corner of the juice gamet. It boasts a view of the entire city. When we ate there we rubbed shoulders with the Dutch national football team. It has everything – and, most importantly, the Hyatt has Eggman. Eggman stands solemnly by a majestic breakfast hob, awaiting instructions, weaving his yolky magic on request as if it were the easiest thing in the world. He is a mythical figure, very much like Zeus or Agamemnon, except that Zeus couldn’t simultaneously flash-fry five immacuate omelettes whilst also scrambling a cheese, chive, pepper, bacon and egg combo to perfection. He has nothing to do with John Lennon’s eggman, who as far as I know was never employed by the Hyatt hotel chain and in any case can’t speak fifteen languages like Eggman can. He is our saviour. He is Eggman.

And so there you have it. Next time you visit one of these locations on tour you can dispense with your over-priced Rough Guide and instead simply heed my words. For it is impossible to feel sorrow when God bestows upon you a plentiful and resplendent breakfast buffet. 

Munch it down. 

Chris Lightyear

Lightyears rock Cape Town

We arrived back in the UK a few days ago after one of our most successful tours yet – South Africa ’09.

All the usual adventures were had, stages were rocked, mountains were climbed (literally) and beaches were stormed. We headlined at the first-ever Cape Town Tens Rugby Tournament on 7 and 8 February in front of a crowd of thousands, and the gigs were definitely amongst the best we’ve ever done. Tournament host Robbie Fleck – a man who has won 31 caps for the South African rugby team – commented: “When The Lightyears hit the stage after Saturday’s rugby and played that first song, I thought the roof of the beer tent was going to fly off! It was without doubt the best party I have ever been to in my life.” 

Click here to read the rest of Robbie’s reactions to the 2009 CT Tens.

Fleck’s co-host Bobby Skinstad, former national rugby captain and all-round sporting legend, described us as “the best band in the world”, which I guess is about as high an accolade as you can get!

We’ll be posting all kinds of media from the tour on the site over the coming weeks – press articles, photos, blogs and so on – so watch this space for updates.

And thanks to everyone who made this tour possible – we had the time of our lives.

Cape Town Tens After-Party – Cape Town – 08/02/09

Cape Town Tens After-Party – Cape Town – 07/02/09

Speedway 105 Cafe – Cape Town – 04/02/09

News from The Cape…

Here’s something I’ve discovered about journalists in South Africa – they’re extremely diligent. I’ve been interviewed by a few local writers over the past couple of days and every one of them had done extensive homework on the band. In fact, the guy I spoke to yesterday knew things about us I’d forgotten myself!

On the subject of press attention, iAfrica – the country’s biggest web portal with 5.7 million hits per month – has just run an article on us on the front page of their music section.

Read iAfrica’s article on the band by clicking here.

Tony made it over here against all the odds. With Heathrow at a virtual standstill, 800 flights were cancelled on Monday and only six left the runway. His plane was the sixth. Extraordinary. As a result, he joined us on the beach this morning for a game of Touch Rugby and you couldn’t wipe the grin off his face if you tried.

We’ve got a gig tonight at the Speedway 105 Cafe. This has been attracting a fair bit of press attention and will hopefully get us some reviews over the coming days. We’ve got a feature coming up in The Cape Argus on Saturday, which is great news as it’s one of Cape Town’s most widely-read daily papers. 

Oh, and as for you guys back home, building snowmen and jingling all the way, I have to say that in a way it’s a shame we’ve missed London’s biggest snowstorm in 20 years. Thing is though, we’ve become so accustomed to the sun that I think the extremity of the climate would probably have killed us. The peculiar Snow-Vs-Sand dichotomy that separates our hometown from our current location was underlined for me yesterday when we passed a lamp-post in the street bearing foreign headlines. The sign, framed by a stunning blue sky and a beaming South African sun, bore three simple words: “SNOW SHUTS LONDON”.

Funny old world, eh?!

Chris Lightyear