USA Tour starts this week!

Our fifth American tour starts this Thursday 15 July at Union Square in New York. Here’s a full rundown of the venues we’re playing:

Thursday 15 July: UNION SQUARE, New York NY
This will be our third year headlining at the Union Square Summer Concert Series in Manhattan. Recent years have seen crowds of thousands and, thanks to the prime location right in the centre of New York, it’s the ideal way to spend a late afternoon in the Big Apple. ENTRY IS FREE!

Friday 16 July: BURLINGTON AMPHITHEATRE, Mount Holly NJ
We’re very excited to return to Burlington for the second year running. Burlington has an impressive amphitheatre and promises to host a fine evening of entertainment. Never fear – if it rains, the show will go on (it’ll be moved to an indoor theatre next door). ENTRY IS FREE!

Saturday 17 July: BLOCKLEY POURHOUSE, Philadelphia PA. BUY TICKETS HERE!
**THIS SHOW IS NOW ALL AGES!!** Our big Saturday night headline gig (and our only appearance in Philadelphia this summer) is at the awesome Blockley Pourhouse on Chestnut Street. The Blockley is a brand-new, state-of-the-art venue built on the site of an old asylum. Which is pretty wacky. Get your tickets here – just $7 advance!

Sunday 18 July: THE SAINT, Asbury Park NJ. BUY TICKETS HERE!
We’ll be seeing out the weekend at The Saint on Main Street, Asbury Park. Previous performers at this venue include Ben Folds Five, Lost Prophets, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and The Dandy Warhols. Tickets on sale here! Also performing are local band Root Glen + special guests.

Thursday 22 July: ASTORIA PARK, New York NY
The tour comes to a close back in New York on 22 July at Astoria Park. We’ll be playing an hour and half’s set, so plenty of time to kick back with a massive Dr Pepper from Taco Bell and maybe even a tasty picnic. ENTRY IS FREE!

Full details on the GIGS page.

To hear us on the radio in your area, request the LYs below!

– Kathy Romano on WMMR (Bala Cynwyd, PA): REQUEST THE LYs HERE
– Bonnie Hart on WBZC “The Pulse” (Pemberton, NJ): REQUEST THE LYs HERE
– WKDU 97.1FM (Philadelphia, PA): REQUEST THE LYs HERE

Tickets go on sale for American Tour 2010

**UPDATE (24 June): Tickets are now on sale for LYs @ Blockley Pourhouse (Philadelphia) on Sat 17 July. CLICK HERE TO BUY YOURS!

Tickets are also available for our show at The Saint in Asbury Park (New Jersey) with local act Root Glen, on Sunday 18 July. Buy yours here.

All our other shows in the USA this summer are FREE ENTRY. Woo-hoo! Here’s a full list of the dates:

Thursday 15 July: Union Square, New York NY
Friday 16 July: Burlington Amphitheatre, Mount Holly NJ
Saturday 17 July: Blockley Pourhouse, Philadelphia PA (BUY TICKETS HERE)
Sunday 18 July: The Saint, Asbury Park NJ (BUY TICKETS HERE)
Thursday 22 July: Astoria Park, New York NY

Full details on the GIGS page.

Northcote Road Carnival – London – 13/06/10

LYs to headline London festival this Sunday

We will be performing at the Northcote Road Carnival in Battersea this Sunday 13 June at 8pm on the Bennerley Stage.

The Northcote Road Carnival is in its second year and crowds of over 10,000 are expected throughout the day. Alongside the live music there’ll be a parade, a funfair, food and flower markets and all kinds of shenanigans going on up and down the street. Entry is free. For more information, click here to visit the official website.

Expect a set of old Lightyears favourites, a new song or two and a not-to-be-missed showstopper we recently added to our repertoire…

Full details on the gigs page. See you there!

Ahoy there matey! It’s those pesky LYs…

On Saturday night we performed for Her Majesty’s Ambassador and six hundred esteemed guests at The Queen’s Birthday Ball in Seoul, South Korea. The theme for the evening was classic 1930s cruise ship glamour and, in honour of this, we performed our set inside an enormous scale model of  a vintage seafaring vessel, which opened up dramatically to reveal us inside.

This is definitely the most unusual stage we’ve played on. I mean, we’ve done some bizarre gigs (that crèche we headlined at in Peterborough springs immediately to mind, along with the cow shed in Belgium) but emerging from inside a cruise-liner bearing the legend “Queen Elizabeth” definitely takes the biscuit.

After the show I had a chat with the lady behind the idea and she explained she’d had many sleepless nights worrying about how the ship would turn out when it appeared on the day. She said that it had ended up being much bigger than she’d anticipated. I replied that she should thank her lucky stars – at least it didn’t come out unexpectedly tiny. They could have had a serious case of Stonehenge on their hands (for reference, see the famous scene in Spinal Tap in which a mix-up over feet and inches results in the dramatic lowering onto the stage of a model of Stonehenge so small that “it was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf”).

This happened to us once. Years ago we got our first big gig at a festival supporting The Levellers. Keen to make the most of the exposure, we had a banner made bearing our name and website address. In our innocence we decided that three-feet long by one-foot wide would be a sufficient size for the job, although when we picked up the banner from the shop and unwrapped it from its little sheath, it turned out to be only slightly larger than a pair of men’s pants. At least if we’d hung pants on the stage this could conceivably have been read as an anarchic gesture.

Note to self: in rock ‘n’ roll, bigger is always better…

The Grand Hyatt Hotel – Seoul – 05/06/10

Somerset Palace Rooftop – Seoul – 03/06/10