LYs to appear in national ad campaign

***UPDATE: check out the T-Mobile East London Jam feat. The Lightyears! Click here***

The Lightyears are appearing in several T-Mobile adverts broadcast nationwide over the coming weeks.

If you’ve seen any of the company’s recent campaign – “What Would You Do With Free Texts For Life?” – you’ll probably have noticed the one where the curly-haired chap vows to start a superband (watch it here). Well, it turns out that we’re in that superband.

So far this has involved jamming with thirty other musicians in a warehouse loft, kicking up a storm in a pub in Oxford and cruising round central London in an open-top bus with cellists, trumpeters, saxophonists, singers, guitarists, bass players, drummers, percussionists and cheerleaders and performing to crowds of startled onlookers in Piccadilly Circus, Mayfair and Soho. You can check out some photos from the bus-tour here.

The first adverts were recently aired during primetime commercial breaks on ITV1. Keep your eyes peeled!

Jamming on an open-top bus!

OK, so it’s Week Three and yet again I found myself gathering up an instrument and heading off to a slightly unconventional jamming session for the new T-Mobile ad campaign. I was on guitar rather than piano today because the session was taking place on a vintage open-top bus driving through the centre of London. I know. This was rock and roll in its purest form.

George is out-of-town at the moment so I took my kid brother Shaun with me, who is a stunning musician and, not that surprisingly, looks almost exactly like me (see picture above for evidence). We started early – 9am to be precise – and spent almost the entire day driving through London’s busiest streets singing to the masses. True to form, Josh had gathered together a motley crew of musicians and vocalists, not to mention a battalion of enthusiastic cheerleaders (complete with pom-poms) to entertain the people of Oxford Street, Soho and Mayfair.

We were a genuine spectacle, cruising through Piccadilly Circus singing and playing and generally causing a ruccus. Tourists stood open-mouthed. Builders whooped and cheered. Hearts were lifted, boundaries were crossed. The superband is growing…

If you’re a musician, you should get involved. Contact Josh via his Myspace page.

Lightyears to play second gig at Wembley Stadium

We’re rather excited to announce that we’ve just been invited back to play Wembley Stadium again on Tuesday 17 November.

Following our performance in September in front of a crowd of nearly 45,000 people, we will be returning to the UK’s most iconic venue to play before the greatly anticipated match between Guinness Premiership leaders Saracens and world-champions South Africa.

As before, the tickets will be super-cheap – just £10 for adults and £5 for under-16s. Click here to buy yours.

The Piano Orchestra

OK – latest developments in the T-Mobile Superband Bonanza…

Today Josh asked us to come and join him and bunch of other musicians in the Half Moon pub in Oxford to jam a new song that had been written for the campaign called “I Wanna Feel You Move”. It was a small pub and full to the brim with guitarists, singers, percussionists and pianists. I was rather delighted to find myself part of a frankly formidable Piano Orchestra (OK, there were only three of us – but that constitutes an orchestra in my opinion). Afterwards, George and I were filmed walking along the street texting friends as if on the way to the jam. Luckily I have a degree in Drama and the skills I learnt whilst at university meant that I was able to very convincingly “text” my “friend” – even though, in reality, I wasn’t actually writing anything at all.

For the second time in a row, the jam was attended by a harpist. Most impressed by this. Harpists are practically an endangered species these days.

Think the first ad will start airing soon…..

Private Gig – Newcastle – 10/10/09

The Lightyears join a superband

A couple of weeks ago, a curly-haired musician named Josh Ward (who we’ve played with a few times in the past and who has been known to wake up on our kitchen floor after Lightyears parties in a sticky puddle of champagne dressed like a sheep) was stopped in the street and asked by a camera crew what he would do if he was given free text messages for life.

Josh’s reply was simple: “I’d text all my musician friends and form a superband”.

Today, readers, The Lightyears joined that superband.

Earlier this evening we took part in an enormous jamming session in a warehouse in East London with around 40 other musicians. It was filmed by T-Mobile as part of their new ad campaign and will soon be appearing on television screens across the country.

As I happened to be the person who wrote the jam that was filmed for the final advert, I’m likely to feature in the advert quite a lot. Just as well I dressed up for the occasion eh?! You’ll probably recognise me if you see the ad because I’ll be wearing the same outfit I donned for our recent performance at Wembley Stadium (the one Danny quipped made me look like I was “out of My Chemical Romance”).

Nobody really seems to know which direction this whole “superband” idea is heading in, but I have a feeling it’s going to keep on getting bigger…. stay tuned for more!

Buy tickets for the LYs’ Christmas Party

We’re headlining The Troubadour in Earls Court on Friday 4 December and it’ll be a MASSIVE Christmas party to celebrate the coming of the festive season.

Tickets are now on sale. Buy yours by clicking here!

Advance tickets cost £6. Tickets on the door will cost £7 before 9.30pm and £8 afterwards. Buying in advance is advisable as THIS GIG WILL SELL OUT.

We were aware of a few technical/timing issues at our last Troubadour gig but we’ll be ironing those out this time by running the night ourselves. So expect superior sound quality and faultless punctuality! (Because, let’s face it, there’s nothing more rock ‘n’ roll than being punctual.)

On top of The Lightyears there’ll be music from Shaun Russell, Neil Thomas and The Iain Hornal Experience. Iain is the former frontman of the wonderful Genius, who some of you may remember from a couple of years back when they were touring with The Feeling. After our set, DJ Mark Love will keep the party going long into the night. All-in-all, the place will be heaving with seasonal merriment, wondrous dancing and joy to all men. It’ll be just like Christmas Day, only you won’t have to waste hours trying to fit AAA batteries into an ultimately disappointing remote-controlled helicopter.

…Remember Fezzywig’s Christmas Party in the Charles Dickens novel “A Christmas Carol”? Well, it’s going to be exactly like that. But without the smallpox.

Doors 8pm, first act 8.15. LYs onstage 9.45pm. Full details on the GIGS page.