Tour Diary

Sex, Drugs and Sandwiches

Thursday 15 August, Astoria Park (Queens, New York City):

It is mid-evening in New York. We have been in the USA approximately eight hours and, according to our body clocks, it’s the middle of the night.

George is already on his fourth meal.

This is how it goes in the States, you see. We fly over with the pretence of being ‘a rock band on tour’, when really we’re more like undercover food scientists seeking to mine North America for her wondrous gastronomical quarry. Since landing we have eaten calamari, mediterranean salads, hot dogs, fresh hummus, speciality Turkish bread and a full steaming carcass of roast pork and – according to George – we still haven’t officially eaten dinner. He wants a massive plate of hot, cheesy New York pizza, and he ain’t sleeping ‘til he gets it.

I deliberately missed out one of the meals earlier in the day, on account of having already eaten two on the plane, and received short shrift from George. This was un-Lightyears of me. I was an embarrassment, to my band and to my country. I felt sad.

I apologise. To The Lightyears, and to the Queen.

Anyhow, moving on, for me the food highlight thus far was definitely the hot dogs. And I’m talking proper old-school New York hot dogs that you get from a bloke on the sidewalk with a wicked big meat trolley. They were insane. I mean SMACK MY ASS WITH A CRICKET BAT insane. I don’t even like hot dogs that much; I think they’re weird. But this evening, as I slowly consumed this bready cylinder of mustardy goodness, I wept for the beauty of the thing. I wept.

Oh, and I probably also ought to mention that this evening our 2013 American tour kicked off with a headline show at the amazing Astoria Park in Queens. In fact, that’s where the hot dogs came from – the park’s resident dog-dude sold so much product to the crowd at our gig that, smile beaming from ear to ear, he presented us with a huge bag of free nosh after the show. Once again, the wonderful people of Astoria came out in droves to see us, and we powered through the jet-lag to deliver 90 minutes of pure, melodic British pop-rock while the sun went down over the East River. It was enormously special. And not just because of the delicious sausages.

How many calories will tomorrow bring? Can’t wait to find out.

Friday 16 August, Jamey’s House Of Music (Philadelphia, PA):

On a quiet little street, in a quiet little suburb of Philadelphia, sits an unassuming little music venue called Jamey’s House Of Music. This was our first visit to Jamey’s, and I was enormously intrigued to find out more about the place – although I have to admit that my initial thought as we cruised through the wide, well-kept suburban boulevards was… ‘Who on earth is going to come and see us out here?!’.

It’s not like the place has passing trade. In fact, Jamey’s House could easily be mistaken for a regular house from the outside – so where was our audience going to come from?

However, as we stepped inside and were greeted by the enthusiastic, gregarious Jamey, I asked him gingerly if we had many people coming down and he replied: ‘We’re sold out’. From there onwards, our first show at Jamey’s turned quickly into one of my favourite ever gigs.

It’s an incredible venue. Intimate, unique and impeccably kitted out, Jamey’s House is quite literally Jamey’s house. He lives there with his family, and hostess Suyun Reilly even cooks a Chinese feast at every gig for the musicians and guests. It was utterly unlike any other show we’ve played – and was captured in full on video for your viewing pleasure. Check it out now by clicking here.

ps. I can’t confirm exactly how much of the All-You-Can-Eat buffet George consumed, but he definitely didn’t hold back.

Saturday 17 August, Circle Of Friends House Concert (Riverton, NJ):

The Circle Of Friends, a collective of music lovers based in New Jersey, have been holding gigs in unexpected locations for some time now (their most intriguing one took place in a boatyard), and today they played host to The Lightyears in the back-room of a big house in the wonderful town of Riverton.

Having visited Riverton in the past, we were familiar with the amazingly welcoming nature and generosity of the folks who live there, and this year was no exception. Our hosts Chris and Deb greeted us with cold beers and a stack of fresh pizzas, and led us to the brand-new extension building behind their home – which happens to be perfect for a live band. Once again, a capacity crowd rocked up and we played a pin-drop acoustic show packed full of new tunes and old LYs standards. I read more passages from my Lightyears novel, Mockstars, and drank an enormous amount of gin (after the gig, I might add. I’m not Pete Doherty).

During the after-party, George – who is still engaged in a mission to teach his stomach a very stern lesson – slipped off to the Wawa Food Hut with Johnny to clear them out of sandwiches and junk food (you can see them in the pic below, enjoying the Wawa’s frankly wonderful touch-screen ordering system). He returned with a hoagie longer than my arm and a big bag of very, very shiny donuts. Half an hour later, he couldn’t move.

‘You know how they say that if you were able to fold a piece of paper in half seven times, it would be bigger than the universe?’ George said to me, as we sat with our good friends Alexis and Nick on the Riverton dock, bobbing up and down in the Delaware River.

‘Yes mate?’

He let out a small burp.

‘That’s what my stomach feels like right now.’

Sunday 18 August, Burlington County Amphitheater (Mount Holly, NJ):

To close the tour, we returned to an old favourite of ours – the Burlington Amphitheater in Mount Holly. The sun was shining, we played to a fourth sell-out crowd and even managed an impromptu collaboration with opening act Camille Peruto, who joined us onstage for an acoustic cover of David Guetta’s hit Titanium. Our unofficial US fan club hosted a party in the evening to mark the end of the trip, and I ate my bodyweight in devilled eggs. So all is well.

* * * * * *

Upon our return to the UK a few days later, we are somewhat dismayed to find the papers full of articles about an American creation called The Cheese & Bacon Pizzaburger. Basically it’s a cheeseburger wrapped in bacon and pepperoni pizza and served like a calzone. And at 1360-calories a pop, it’s a meal that makes your arteries contract just looking at it.

And we’ve missed it.

Fiddlesticks.

Guess we’ll have to come back next year then, eh?

ps. Whilst in the States we also recorded a live session and interview with radio DJ Charlie Silvestri. You can listen to it in full by clicking here.

“I’ll have a Gibson please, stout yeoman…”

Saturday 13 October, 4.45pm (Gothenburg, Sweden):
The Lightyears have landed, for the first time ever, in Sweden. We’re playing a gig with a superband of rock legends on Monday (what’s the official collective noun for that? A ‘crowd-surf’ of rock legends, perhaps?!) and so John, Tony and I have flown out a day or two early to get the lay of the land.

Gothenburg’s an interesting place. To hardened Londoners, its most immediate features are the pervading sense of calm, the blissful lack of traffic and the extraordinary price of booze.

In fact, after just an hour or two here we have decided that Gothenburg is way too expensive a city to get drunk in, so we’re just going to have a quiet one.

[Five hours later.]

We are in a Swedish cocktail bar, and we are drunk. And poor.

I can say with almost unwavering certainty that this bar is in Gothenburg, but other than that its whereabouts are unclear. We wandered in earlier this afternoon and have somehow never left, perhaps due to the fact that a pint of beer in here actually costs less than £9. The cold, driving rain may be pounding the cobbles outside, but indoors The Lightyears have found a candle-lit jazz enclave, perfect for an evening reminiscing about old tours and looking forward to new ones.

The waiter returns, for the twenty-seventh time, to our table.

“I should like a Gibson please, stout yeoman,” announces Tony, who is by now feeling really rather saucy. The tremendously-cheekboned waiter falters, and narrows his eyes.

“What is a Gibson?”

Tony looks stumped. I guess he wasn’t expecting that (at least not in a cocktail bar).

“Um… well…” He looks to us. We both shake our heads, and he returns to the waiter. “I saw Cary Grant order one in North By Northwest. But… erm… I’ve got no idea what’s in it.”

Slight pause.

“…Although it definitely involves one of those little onions.”

This is classic Tony. The waiter looks back over his shoulder, then clears our glasses.

“I will figure it out,” he concludes, with all the confidence of a man about to entirely make something up. Fifteen minutes later he returns, looking somewhat sheepish.

“I’m afraid we have run out of cocktail glasses,” he says, producing a wine glass from behind his back. “And also cocktail onions.”

In front of Tony stands a comically enormous wine glass containing the smallest amount of liquid I have ever seen pass as a drink. It is the colour of wee, and half-submerged within it is a huge slice of raw onion on a stick.

Tony’s suavity points plummet immediately from Cary Grant to Russell Grant.

“Right… thanks,” he replies hesitantly, peering into his drink and proceeding to suck on the onion as if it were some kind of disgusting lollipop.

After this, the remainder of the evening passes in a blur that definitely involves venison, and more beers, and something with fish. Happy and full-bellied, we crash out onto the rain-whipped street in the wee small hours in search of a way home.

Now, take it from me – Sweden is an extremely wholesome place. The people here are sophisticated and polite, everyone drinks in moderation and they all look like they get plenty of sleep. The wages are high and crime is low, all of which makes Gothenburg the kind of the city where, for example, you’d never expect to get ripped off by a taxi driver.

Sunday 14 October, 2.30am (somewhere in Gothenburg):
We are being ripped off by a taxi driver.

And I don’t mean by a sneaky quid or two – this guy just charged us TWENTY-SIX POUNDS for a four-minute cab ride. His official fee was twenty-five, but when he handed back my change he had sneakily tipped himself another pound, the flagrant apple-john. I suppose in a way the Gullible Tourist should expect certain rites of passage when visiting new cities – being humourlessly grilled at customs in New York, for instance, or discovering that nobody likes you in Paris – but I tell you what, when I get back to England that fellow’s cab firm will find themselves opening up a really quite severely-worded e-mail on the subject, so I hope they’re ready.

Sunday 14 October, 6.30pm (The harbourside, Gothenburg):
During Lightyears tours, Tony has two modes – ON and OFF. When he’s on, your liver had better watch out; but when he’s off, he mostly lies in bed in his pants watching football in the dark. Today is one of those days, so before the rest of the band arrives John and I have ventured back out into the city to see what it looks like minus the hazy filter of alcohol.

We have an absolutely fantastic day, largely due to Gothenburg’s equivalent of Boris Bikes. Public transport karma is definitely on our side after last night’s taxi debacle, and for a mere pound we purchase free cycling for three whole days… glorious. And it’s stopped raining.

At around midnight, the rest of the band arrives at the hotel. Soundman Danny is looking bleary-eyed on account of coming here straight from a European tour with Belleruche (a band who are way cooler than us and, I expect, know how to properly order a Gibson), George is looking fatigued on account of having a ten-week old baby, but Owen – our lead guitarist for this trip – is looking sprightly on account of being back in one of his favourite cities. He immediately takes us on a trip around some of his old haunts, including an Irish pub called The Dubliner and an achingly cool club called Park Lane.

Everyone – everyone – in Park Lane is stupendously attractive.

“This is insane,” I remark to Owen, as we stand on the dancefloor balcony watching chiselled beauties with amazing hair moving under coloured lights. “It actually looks like people have been auditioned to get in here.”

“That’s because they have,” replies Owen, with a twinkle in his eye, as another procession of impossibly beautiful women passes by. “They don’t let the ugly ones in.”

In reply I offer some quip about how on earth we managed to slip through the net, but it gets lost in the steady thump, thump of the music.

Monday 15 October, 4.45pm (Gothia Towers, Gothenburg):
It’s the day of the gig, and we are sitting in soundcheck watching The Who’s Roger Daltrey, Queen’s Roger Taylor and their backing band SAS (made up of many of the world’s top session players) rehearsing Baba O’Riley. This is surreal, and brilliant, and not something I ever quite expected to witness. We used to come onstage to this song at the Clapham Grand, and now we’ve got a behind-the-scenes peak at The Real Deal. We are all doing our utmost to come across as cool and aloof, and not in any way starstruck.

Danny breaks the illusion, however, when Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden turns up and he bounds over to get his photo taken with him (and here it is —–>).

The SAS Band is run by all-round legend and fellow keyboard player Spike Edney. Spike has long been Queen’s keyboard player and musical director, and is very kindly letting me use his piano during our set. I note with excitement that the instrument patch he has set up for me sits next to ‘Rock You’ and ‘Champions’, which I decide is extremely bloody cool. Then, whilst waiting for our soundcheck to start, I spot a white Roland AX-7 – that’s a keytar to you cretins – propped up against his amp, and resolve to ask Spike if he’s ever played it at Wembley Stadium (not out of the question, since he did perform with Queen at Live Aid). This might sound odd to you but I was keen to discover whether or not he was eligible to join my exclusive club for People Who Have Played Keytars At Wembley. So far it’s just me and Gary Barlow, so we could do with bumping up the numbers. Sadly, however, there simply wasn’t time.

With the venue about to fill up with people, we speed through our soundcheck and head back up to our hotel rooms to kick back with a beer and ‘Transformers 3 – The Dark Of The Moon’ before showtime (we do consider asking the Rogers if they fancy two and a half solid hours of autobot action to help them relax before the gig, but they’ve disappeared).

12.45am (backstage at Gothia Towers):
Now here’s something I never thought I’d experience. We are standing backstage planning our set, trying to decide whether or not to play Bohemian Rhapsody with Queen’s actual drummer standing actually right behind us. Being a plucky young fella, Owen opts eventually to just come out and ask him, and Roger graciously replies ‘Sure, knock yourself out’ on account of the fact that they’re not doing it tonight. Then he walks onstage to perform We Will Rock You.

Epic.

SAS end on We Are The Champions (you kinda have to, right?!) and leave the stage to deafening applause from the crowd. It’s getting late and closing time isn’t far off so we pile onstage and get going as quickly as possible. This has to be one of our latest starts to date – 1.15am! – but we go at it like buffalos on a jet-ski (that simile is new to me as well, and to be honest I’m not convinced by it. But hey, moving on).

I have a whale of a time up on my piano player’s riser (normally I’m stuck behind the speaker, so this is a real boon for me) and, if I’m honest, spend much of the set trying not to watch myself on the big screens. Tony pounds the living heck out of the drums and John, George and Owen bomb about on the massive stage soloing like loons and grinning from ear to ear. In the end there’s not enough time for Bohemian Rhapsody, but we don’t mind. The adrenalin rush is absolutely killer.

Tumbling back into the wings at the end of our set, we conclude that there’s now only one thing for it – head backstage to party with The Legends.

Sidling into the SAS dressing room with all the subtlety of excitable children allowed to stay up past midnight on New Year’s Eve, we fall into conversation with the stars. I spend a while chatting with Patti Russo, the super-lunged rock chick famous for being Meat Loaf’s lead female vocalist. She’s an absolute hoot, although annoyingly it didn’t occur to me until the next day to ask her what it was that Meat Loaf wouldn’t do for love. In the absence of the definitive answer, I’m going to say it was doing the recycling. Because that can be well annoying.

We manage to engineer a quick chat with Daltrey and Taylor before they leave for their hotel, asking Roger D how he finds performing Baba time after time, after all these years. “I just sing it like it’s the first time, every time,” he says, very simply, and you can tell he means it. At the end of the day, I guess that’s the basic secret of performance – and there’s a man who should know.

Roger T is wearing an amazing fur coat and is, unsurprisingly, effortlessly cool. We have our photo taken together, shake hands with them and eventually part ways, genuinely humbled by the experience.

As the SAS Band disperse from the dressing room, their publicist Roxy tools us up with a few leftover bottles of wine and a box of beers and we stumble back up to our room to see the tour out in style (well, perhaps not in style. But definitely ‘in room’). More tour stories are shared, anecdotes performed, debates had and wine spilt, until the night begins to fade and morning greets us with its wide-eyed glare. Danny, Tony and I have remained standing long enough to hit breakfast at 7am, which we do with extraordinary gusto and almost certainly an embarrassing inability to hide from the assembled business folk that we’ve been up all night drinking Merlot from tiny hotel mugs.

An hour later, as the sun starts to come up, Danny and I crash back into our room and fall asleep to the sweet refrain of Zooey Deschanel doing her kooky quirky thing from the flickering TV. Sleep soon descends.

What a night, boys… and thank you Sweden!

Chris Lightyear

ps. click here for our Swedish tour photo album.

Just as glorious as I remember…

Wednesday 3 February, 11.30am (Table Bay Hotel, Cape Town, South Africa):
We landed in South Africa this morning to embark on our 2010 Cape Town tour and the place is just as glorious as I remember. Ten minutes ago we checked into our hotel rooms at the Table Bay, Cape Town’s swishest hotel, and whilst the rooms are being prepared we stroll out onto the Waterfront, bathed in sunshine, to have a little shufty at the famous Golden Seal statue.

The Seal statue is the hotel’s emblem and sits atop a plinth adorned with a series of golden plaques, bearing the names of the many famous and illustrious figures in film, music, politics and sport who have stayed there over the years. I investigate more closely and am suitably impressed. Here are some of the highlights:

– Michael Jackson
– Snoop Dogg
– Maroon Five
– Wesley Snipes
– Vladimir Putin
– Manchester United
– The England football team
– Stevie Wonder
– Robert De Niro
– Quincy Jones
– Barack Obama
– …and, just above Obama and slightly to the left… us.

The Lightyears.

We have a plaque on the Table Bay’s Golden Seal. And in case you don’t believe me, I’ve posted a photo on the right.

I suspect that if Putin discovered that he featured on the side of a statue, he’d play things pretty cool. Not us. We proceed to take a variety of shameless photos of ourselves pointing and grinning at our name, flipping the thumbs-up and generally behaving like the worst kind of tourists. But we don’t care. We’ve got our name on a statue. With a little union jack under it.

Our mothers will be so proud.

Best start to a tour… ever.

(By the way, this got me thinking – how many other plaques have been forged in our honour without us knowing? If we were to return one day to the Knutsford M6 Travelodge, would one of the concrete parking bollards bear the legend “The Lightyears stayed here – and they saw that it was good”? There’s simply no way of knowing for sure.)

Thursday 4 February, 8pm (Green Point World Cup Stadium, Cape Town):
Being in a touring band has landed me in some pretty unusual places. I’ve performed the Korean national anthem with a world-famous opera singer for Her Majesty’s Ambassador. I’ve played my piano in the centre-circle of a football pitch whilst Rio Ferdinand and Carlos Tevez kicked a ball about above my head. And I’ve sung my heart out to a hundred and fifty Belgian farmers in a cow-shed in Kortrijk whilst a massive bull looked on, apparently completely nonplussed by the music (perhaps he wasn’t into indie). Tonight, I’m drinking free beer and eating tiny little miniature hamburgers at the brand-new 60,000-capacity World Cup Stadium in Cape Town whilst a rugby talk show is filmed on the pitch – the first time cameras have been allowed inside. And I know almost nothing about rugby. How did this happen?!

In case you were wondering, it happened because the organisers of the Cape Town Tens (the event we’re playing at this weekend) are big names in the rugby world and in some cases were being interviewed tonight live on camera. When the filming finishes, we make our way back into the players’ tunnel in order to be as close as possible to the bar. I stand, beer in hand, gazing out at the immaculate flood-lit pitch and an interesting thought occurs to me. In six months’ time, the greatest footballers in the world will emerge from this tunnel to an enormous stadium crowd and a global TV viewing audience of millions. There is something wrong, and yet at the same time so wonderfully right, about me – a man who throws like a girl, would struggle to explain the offside rule and consistently came last in the high jump at school – beating them to it. Bring on the 2010 World Cup…

Friday 5 February, 8pm (Cape Town Tens Rugby Tournament, Hamiltons RFC, Cape Town):
Here we are, back at Hamiltons RFC (South Africa’s oldest rugby club) in the shadow of Green Point Stadium, making the preparations for our gigs this weekend at the annual Cape Town Tens Rugby Tournament. Last year’s event was spectacular and it seems to have doubled in size for 2010. The stage looks fantastic, all kitted out with a fancy lighting rig and an epic sound system. It’s also quite strange for us to see the drums set up on a riser at the back of the stage, which has happened on account of the fact that, for the first time ever, Tony isn’t on tour with us. Tony, you see, is having a baby (or rather his wife is), and for our South African trip he has been replaced by the inimitable Andy Paine, who is a little more conventional than Tony and play the drums sitting down at the back of the stage. Soundcheck is a very straightforward affair – the in-house engineers are excellent, and in combination with Danny Lightyear they have the whole thing sounding absolutely cracking within about twenty minutes. We’re all very excited about tomorrow…

Saturday 6 February, 8pm (Cape Town Tens Rugby Tournament, Hamiltons RFC, Cape Town):
The marquee is packed for our show tonight at the Tens… and let’s just say that the crowd are “well-oiled” after a day’s solid drinking in the Capetonian sun. After a storming warm-up set from Me & Mr Brown, we take to the stage amid flashing lights and dry ice and bask in the sonic glory of the Tens’ epic sound system. It’s a real joy to play on such a quality rig. The crowd are in the mood for singalongs tonight and the best moments come when we chuck in the odd South African number (Prime Circle’s “She Always Gets What She Wants”, for example – unknown in the UK but, boy, did that kick off in Cape Town!), as these really seem to capture the imagination of the locals. True to form there’s quite a bit of male nudity and playful wrestling going on during our set, as well as a practise in which one unfortunate chap is unexpectedly leapt upon by ten or eleven others until he turns red, like a tomato. Plus, these are BIG guys. All part of the fun of course.

My only disappointment tonight is that the increased security this year – as well as the barriers that separate us from the crowd – have rendered stage-diving pretty much impossible. Another time perhaps…

Sunday 7 February, 6.30pm (Cape Town Tens Rugby Tournament, Hamiltons RFC, Cape Town):
We spent today lounging by the pool and sampling the hotel’s excellent range of cocktails. If you look to the right you’ll see a photo of me and my blue margarita, which is admittedly something of a girly drink but is admirably offset by the book I’m reading (I would heartily recommend Slash’s autobiography, incidentally – any book which contains the sentence “This is exactly the excuse we needed to fire Bob Clearmountain” is worth a look, if you ask me). By the time we return to Hamilton’s RFC for the second gig of the tour we are feeling mightily chilled out and this definitely feeds into our set which, in keeping with the Sunday night atmosphere amongst the crowd, has much more of a laidback vibe than yesterday. We’re really settling in to performing with Andy and, as the sun sets and the tournament draws to a close, it’s a genuine pleasure to simply play music together. The highlight of the evening is when we join Me & Mr Brown onstage for a collective performance of Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” and everybody present absolutely sings their hearts out. Magic.

The rest of the tour is seen out in typical style with a celebratory last night out on the Waterfront, a frightening number of Jäegerbombers (for which we chiefly have Danny to blame) and a hotel-room party complete with the inevitable and merciless mini-bar raiding. John, Danny and I stayed on for a few extra days to climb the spectacular Lion’s Head, indulge in a little winetasting out in the countryside and marvel at the beautiful scenery of Cape Point, the southernmost tip of Africa – but that’s another story, for another time…

ps. Jacob David Lyons, the world’s first ever Micro-Lightyear, was born on Thursday 18 February at 10.33pm weighing 8lbs 10z. The race is on to turn him into a drummer/guitarist/keyboardist/bassist (depending on which member of the band you ask). The grown-up Lightyears are all excited at the prospect of little Jacob joining the LYs as soon as he’s ready, on account of the fact that he would bring our average age down really quite considerably.

“Hello Wembley!!”

SATURDAY 12 SEPTEMBER, 9.30am (Wembley Stadium, London):
This is it.

The big one.

The motherload.

Wembley. Flipping. Stadium.

Today we are performing on the pitch at Wembley in front of an estimated crowd of around 45,000 people. Once we’re done, Britain’s Got Talent winners Diversity will take to the stage and, shortly afterwards, Saracens and Northampton Saints will kick off what is likely to be one of this season’s best-attended rugby union matches.

So no pressure then.

On entering the mighty bowels of the UK’s most iconic venue, we are led through what turns out to be the least impressive part of the new Wembley. The catacombs underneath the stands have the unmistakable aura of an NCP car-park and are an unassuming epilogue to the moment at which you emerge from the tunnel onto the famous pitch and cannot help but gawp at the spectacular, looming grandeur of this 90,000-capacity stadium. The sun is shining intensely, the pitch is immaculate and there is an unmistakable feeling of nervous anticipation in the air. We all stand pitch-side, humbled by the experience, exchanging silent eye contact. This is the biggest thing we’ve ever done.

11.15am:
After sound-checking to an entirely empty stadium (which, take it from me, is a bizarre experience), we head inside to get changed into our carefully-chosen performance threads.

Tony heads straight for the van. “We can get changed in the van guys – I’ve put up curtains and everything”.

Now, in this band, we’ve always felt it’s very important to keep our feet on the ground, even when success of stadium-sized proportions beckons. I can’t help but feel that this, however, is taking that philosophy a little far. Plus there’s no way that Dave Grohl would express pride in curtains. Ever.

“Tony, mate… we’re playing Wembley Stadium. We’ve got a dressing room. You don’t have to get changed in a Transit.”

Tony looks almost crestfallen. His home-made curtains have been spurned. He’s a man of simple pleasures (quiche, cricket on the telly, Radio 4, vegetarian scotch eggs) and I think that being given a dressing room that a couple of days ago may well have been occupied by the England football team is perhaps just a bit too fancy for him.

Indeed, when we’re shown to our dressing room, the contrast is enormous. You could fit thirty enormous rugby players in here and still have room for twenty crates of London Pride. Which I suppose is the point. We scatter our belongings around the room in an attempt to claim it as our own, take a few pictures of ourselves sitting beneath clothes hooks pretending to be sportsmen and generally do our best to keep our minds occupied in the nail-biting hours leading up to the band’s most high profile performance yet.

1.25pm:
We’re standing pitch-side waiting to go onstage. Wembley is filling up and we have a healthy contingent of Lightyears fans filling up Block 105 in the north-east corner of the stadium. There is something undeniably surreal about this whole experience. Are we really about to play Wembley?!

We’ve planned a set of upbeat, crowd-pleasing covers designed to kick the event off with a bang. The organisers want a party atmosphere and it’s our job to make sure the party starts as it means to go on. As the MC announces our performance and a huge picture of us appears on the stadium’s two big screens, I nod at George. This is definitely happening. We step up onstage, there’s a roar from the crowd, and we launch into our opening number, The Fratellis’ “Chelsea Dagger”.

In a move to keep the set fresh and interesting, we’ve choreographed a few instrument changes and I’m starting the gig on guitar, leaving George free to perform the lead vocals. We’ve never done this before so it’s a bit of an experiment, but I have to admit I’m loving it. I look across at Tony, who has the world’s biggest grin on his face, and mouth the phrase “We’re playing Wembley!”. He beams back at me. It’s pay-day.

Saracens have billed today’s match as a “Family Day Out” and so there’s an incredibly wide age-range in attendance. The crowd respond very warmly to our set and we’ve been careful to include a wide variety of tunes so that there’s something for everyone – Jackson Five, Abba, Kings Of Leon, Queen and so on. During “Mamma Mia” I whip out my vintage 1980s Roland AX-1 (or “keytar”, for those who aren’t fluent in keyboard-speak – which is basically anybody who can claim to possess even a shred of self-respect). This is essentially a keyboard shaped like a guitar that enables frustrated prima donnas such as myself to get out from behind the piano and strut about at the front of the stage with all the other posers. In theory the keytar is just about the most kitsch instrument in music, and as a result I really shouldn’t have been allowed to use it in combination with an Abba song. Too late now, however. In truth I just wanted to count myself amongst the presumably very select group of musicians who can say they’ve played a keytar at Wembley. Keep your eyes peeled for the Facebook group. 😉

After a short break, we return to the stage armed with around 80 pom-pom waving cheerleaders. I’ve been looking forward to this part. This is where we perform our version of The Beatles’ “Twist & Shout” whilst The Sensations and The Mini-Sensations (Saracens’ very own cheerleading groups) shake their thang pitch-side. It’s quite a spectacle, believe me. We follow this with our closing number, “500 Miles”, accompanied by world-renowned Crowd Conductor Steve Barnett, bedecked in bright red coattails and a top hat.

As the song is drawing to a close and it falls to me to address the crowd one last time, a cheeky impulse overcomes me. Normally this is the point in the set where you say “Thanks for having us, have a great day, enjoy the camel racing etc” but I can’t help but feel that that’s a little bit predictable. Plus this is after all a sporting occasion and I know how much sports fans love a little bit of gentle mickey-taking. So, instead, I say this: “Ladies & Gentlemen, would the owner of a green and yellow Northampton Saints team coach please make their way to the front desk. Your vehicle is double-parked.”

I was rather pleased with that.

2.30pm
As we stand pitch-side and watch Diversity wow the crowd with their second dance-number, I look around at the guys and find myself experiencing a heartwarming “Happy Days” moment. We’ve worked really hard to get here. Here’s hoping it won’t be too long before we back…

Chris Lightyear

Blue Moons and seven-foot transvestites…

WEDNESDAY 29 JULY, 8.30pm (Business Class Cabin, British Airways Flight 183, Heathrow):
The last time we toured to America, we flew Business Class. It turned out that Tony had a “contact” who was able to pull some strings for us at British Airways (I didn’t ask exactly what this meant – Tony has East End gangster blood in his family and I generally find it’s best not to enquire about his methods) and we had our tickets upgraded. Sadly, this time round, on account of the flight being absolutely packed, we have been condemned to flying World Traveller Plus, which is the next rung above cattle.

As a result we are now having to shuffle ignominiously through the Business Class cabin on our way to inferior seats in a perverse re-enactment of that moment in 1980s game shows when the presenter would excitedly announce: “And here’s what you could have won!” (it was always a speedboat, for some reason). You’d watch the forlorn faces of the unsuccessful contestants, struggling to look gracious whilst a small army of bikini-clad beauties clambered all over the star prize, stroking it lasciviously and batting their eyelids. We are having the upmarket wares of high-society living literally paraded about in front of us. The champagne. The leg-room. The seats-that-are-actually-beds. It’s almost too much. I long to turn away, but cannot. Oh the shame.

And then, unexpectedly, I spot a small boy in one of the seats. He’s sitting next to his very glamorous-looking mother. It’s unusual to see young children in Business Class but he looks somehow at home here, at ease, waiting so well-behaved in his window seat. He’s a beautiful kid, Italian I think, a mop of jet black hair and an innocent, thoughtful expression drifting like gentle waves across his eyes. He is playing quietly with a small wooden model of a fire engine. Our eyes meet momentarily and I glimpse the fleeting intangibility of youth in his handsome young face, the soft, unblinking wonder of boyhood – unaffected, it seems, by the transitory comforts that surround him, and I find myself thinking…

“You little bastard.”

THURSDAY 29 JULY, 2.15am (Merrion Square Bar, Upper East Side, Manhattan, New York USA):
Having somehow survived the flight to New York without even the slightest whiff of fillet steak, we arrived into JFK airport at around 10.30pm local time and were met by Ashley, one of our US tour managers. We immediately took a cab to her apartment on the Upper East Side in the expectation of going straight to bed.

Instead, somehow, we currently find ourselves on our fourth round of Blue Moons (a deliciously fruity local beer) in an almost empty Manhattan bar whilst a Phil Collins live album plays over the PA. Now, without doubt, we are officially “on tour”.

THURSDAY 29 JULY, 6.15pm (Union Square, Manhattan, New York):
This is our second performance in Union Square. Our first was last September, as part of one of the more manic episodes in the history of The Lightyears, in which we succeeded in playing two gigs in two continents, three thousand miles apart, in under twenty hours. This time around it’s all a lot more straightforward. We’ve been in New York for a day already and have begun the process of acclimatising to local culture (i.e. eating more than our own body weights at each meal – this morning for breakfast, for example, I ate a pastrami sandwich that contained so much meat I actually felt like it might have been endangering cows as a species) and developing a tolerance for the intense heat you get in the peak of summer in Manhattan.

This evening’s gig, which is part of a summer-long concert series run by the Union Square partnership, is outdoors. Last week’s concert was rained off during one of the city’s dramatic July thunderstorms, but today we’ve been lucky and the sun is blazing. Jukebox The Ghost, a fantastic Philly band who supported us in London a couple of years ago and were the unfortunate victims of last week’s cancelled performance, have joined us on the bill and are just finishing their highly entertaining and accomplished support slot in front of a rapidly burgeoning crowd. Top band – check them out here. When we jump up onstage and look out across the park, I begin to wonder whether this could turn out to be our biggest audience yet in the States, and it turns out I’m right – by the time we’ve played our first few songs and the passing trade have assembled in front of the stage, the crowd has grown to several thousand. This is brilliant. Summer evening, outdoor concert, Union Square, the British invasion – nothing could be better. I’d go as far as to say that it turns into our best ever show in the States.

We play for around an hour and the set includes songs both old and new – recent tracks such as “Johannesburg” and “Speedway 105” sit alongside songs which we haven’t played since last time we were in the USA such as “Miles Away” and “Brightest Star”. We’re having a whale of a time. I spot some familiar faces out in the plaza – fans from Philly who have travelled into the city to see us, friends from previous tours and even a couple of Lightyears fans from London. I speak to one girl afterwards who tells me: “I was walking through Manhattan and heard some band covering “Sleepless” by The Lightyears. Then I took a closer look and discovered it was you!”.

Afterwards we sign a bunch of autographs and have our photos taken with new fans, which is rather brave of them considering how disgustingly sweaty I am (see some of the pictures here). Follow this we assemble a motley crew and head for Revival where our after-party is being held. At Revival we gorge on pizza and more Blue Moons and at some point in the evening end up dancing with seven-foot transvestites to Michael Jackson tunes in a club that is, apparently, also a beauty parlour.

Today has been probably one of my favourite days ever.

FRIDAY 30 JULY, 6.15pm (WAWA Food Hut, Riverton, Philadelphia):
Today we head for Philadelphia. Which means one thing above all others.

THE WAWA FOOD HUT.

Wawa, as far as I’m aware, does reasonably good business most of the year in the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware and Virginia. It’s a popular brand of roadside supermarket-cum-deli and Americans have responded favourably to its easy level of convenience and innovative touch-screen sandwich-ordering technology.

That said, I don’t think I’d be out of line in ultimately attributing the massive success of the brand to the amount of business it does once-yearly when The Lightyears land in Philadelphia.

We just can’t get enough of Wawa. Sure, we have sandwiches in Britain (we invented them) but the typical deal is two, maybe three fillings, limited to a small number of essentially quite similar combinations. Not so with Wawa. In fact, I’d confidently assert that The Wawa Food Hut is a very effective microcosm for the entire American Dream philosophy – in the USA, you can have exactly what you want, when you want it, and in huge quantities to boot. Just like in Wawa. For example, one of the options at the very beginning of the sandwich-ordering process is “2-foot”… a TWO FOOT SANDWICH! That’s insane. It’s like eating a boa constrictor.

On this particular day, we head into Wawa giddy with expectation. It’s been nearly ten months since our last hoagie and we’re all salivating with the thought. In The Lightyears, we tend to fall prey on tour to what we like to call “competitive eating”. It’s essentially a way of asserting masculinity over other band members by out-eating them, often to disgusting lengths, and I’ll be the first to admit that George is running rings around me on this tour.  I think the heat may have sapped my appetite. Whatever the explanation, I am destined to lose this particular bout.

After you’ve ordered your sandwich, the little computer prints a receipt for you, listing all the ingredients you have chosen to include in your hoagie. Grinning like a Cheshire Cat, George saunters over to me and says: “Look at my receipt”. He unleashes it. It’s about a foot long.

“How long is yours?”

I’m ashamed to produce it. It’s half the length of George’s.

“Are you on a diet?” goads George.

I think about defending myself by telling him it’s not the size of your sandwich but what you do with it that counts, but I know I’d be lying. I’ve failed. Admittedly my Wawa Philly Cheesesteak is no tiddler, and it fills me up, but that’s not really the point. In The Lightyears, unless you’ve eaten until the point of debilitation, you’ve not really eaten.

Once we’re back in the ridiculously massive truck that we’ve hired to get to Spring City, George begins the arduous process of actually ingesting the behemoth sitting in his lap. When he opens the paper wrapping, I actively wince. I swear I can even hear his heart-rate increasing. There are so many fillings in this sandwich that the bread walls have been breached and are hidden beneath a steaming mountain of meat, cheese, vegetables and sauce. It’s less of a sandwich and more of a dreadful pizza. I can immediately read the look on George’s face – “I can’t eat this like a normal sandwich”, he’s thinking, “because I can’t pick it up. There’s only one option.”

And with that, George plunges face-first into his food like a pig in a trough.

Whilst this disgusting process is unfolding beside me, I take the chance to study the receipt. My jaw drops open. Here’s a rough approximation of what it said:

ORDER #78: PHILLY CHICKEN CHEESESTEAK (12″)
Ingredients
– Cheese
– Extra cheese (3)
– Pepper Jack Cheese
– Grated parmesan
– Chicken
– Meat
– Extra meat
– Extra bacon
– A little bit of oil
– Extra oil [this isn’t a joke – you really can order this in America]
– Peppers
– Roasted peppers
– Sweet peppers
– Sweet roasted peppers
– Onions
– Extra onions
– Ranch sauce
– Barbeque sauce
– Horseradish
– Tomato relish
– Mayo
– Garlic mayo
– Honey mustard sauce
– Mustard
– French mustard
– Salt
– Pepper
– Oregano

In some counties in England, it would actually be illegal to eat this.

When he’s done, George is looking distinctly peaky. We are just a few miles outside of Spring City and will need to load our gear into the venue within the half hour.

“Chris…” he begins, struggling even to form words, “Chris… I don’t think I can do the gig. You’ll have to go on without me.”

I turn to face him. He looks like he’s been sat on by a bear.

“George mate, it’s going to be fine. I think you know what to do.”

He nods slowly.

“You’ll have to do the Christmas Walk.”

George invented the Christmas Walk back in the late ’90s. Typically it is used but once a year, on 25 December, at the close of Christmas dinner. In England it is customary on this occasion to eat and drink yourself into a stupor before crashing down in front of the TV to watch Noel Edmonds mince about in a woolly jumper for about five hours. Problem is, George has a habit of eating such a colossal amount of food during dinner that he is unable to straighten his body into a walking position upon leaving the chair, making a normal walk impossible. Necessity being the mother of invention, some years ago he patented the Christmas Walk, an ingenious method of walking whilst remaining in a sitting position. Basically you’re bent over at a sharp right angle, staring at the floor and waddling like an infirm duck. This enables you to muster a brief burst of (albeit limited) movement in spite of your creakingly full stomach. All you need is enough momentum to get you from the dinner table to the armchair. It doesn’t take much. But the Christmas Walk makes it all possible.

And so it was that George found himself Christmas Walking from the parking lot in the quaint town of Spring City, Pennsylvania, to the front door of Chaplin’s Music Cafe, where the second gig of our US tour was taking place. Passers-by regarded him with suspicion. “We’re British,” I explain. “He’s had a little too much cheesesteak. Nothing a quick Christmas Walk won’t sort out.”

FRIDAY 30 JULY, 8.45pm (Chaplin’s Music Cafe, Spring City, Pennsylvania):
Spring City is a small, attractive and incredibly quiet town north-west of Philadelphia. In England, a place like this wouldn’t have a music venue. In England, it wouldn’t even have a post office. But they do things differently in America.

Spring City also has a music store, conveniently situated opposite the venue and coincidentally named George’s Music. Naturally we had to go in there so George could do his “I’m a musician from England and my name’s George” routine. Rather splendidly the chap behind the counter gave us all free t-shirts in recognition of this fact. I left the store and discovered that mine was “Triple XL”. Not altogether useful for me at this stage in my career but I thought about it and concluded that it will come in handy when, after our 11th album has gone platinum and we all harbour such unrelenting and undisguised loathing for each other that we have begun taking separate limos to gigs, and I sit in my keytar-shaped swimming pool all day eating cheeseburgers and Findus crispy pancakes from a bucket and I’m wildly obese and need to be airlifted to gigs, it’ll be just the ticket. Always good to plan for the future, I reckon.

Chaplin’s is a fantastic little venue. The sound system is incredibly crisp and juicy (that’s right – “juicy” is a technical term in sound production) and it’s a great place to see live music. There’s a friendly crowd in tonight and we play, if I may say so myself, a very accomplished and well-balanced one-hour set that moves from the gentle acoustica of “Fine” and “Girl On The Radio” through the sunny upbeat harmonies of “Brightest Star” and “Emily”, closing on the theatrical coda of “The Last Night”. I do a bit of banter about sandwiches, which seems to go down well, and we sample a couple of flagons of the excellent local beer known as “Sly Fox”.

We are supporting a blues/soul act called Brooke Shive and The 45s, who are great fun and sound really superb. They are joined by Andy Goessling of Railroad Earth, who at one point manages to play two saxophones simultaneously. Now THAT’S a trick worth seeing.

Tomorrow – Ardmore, Pennsylvania.

Sunday – Burlington New Jersey.

Keep your eyes peeled for Part Two of my USA Tour Diary 2009 – coming soon!

Chris Lightyear

“We’ll always have Cape Town, boys…”

SATURDAY 7 MARCH, 9.30am (Table Bay Hotel, Cape Town, South Africa):
It’s the morning of the gig. The moment this whole week has been building up to. Last night we spent a few nerve-wracking hours getting to know the rugby players who will constitute a large proportion of our audience tonight and, whilst we escaped without any broken bones, we all remain a little nervous about whether or not we’ll win them over at the gig.

On the way to breakfast in the hotel I spot several copies of the Cape Argus, one of the city’s foremost broadsheets, resting on a side-table. Our interview ought to be published today. As I rifle through the pages, I discover that indeed it has been. I read the article over a breakfast of roasted duck pancakes with hoisin sauce, sushi, avocado salad, quail’s eggs, freshly-brewed black coffee and a few slices of exquisitely rare prime beef-steak (click here to find out where the Table Bay breakfast placed in my International Five Star Hotel Breakfast Richter Scale). The article’s great – the journalist has really done his homework and has some nice comments to make about the band and our recent track “Johannesburg”. Click here to read it.

After a few hours spent relaxing by the pool, we jump in our wicked tour-bus and head for Hamilton Rugby Club. It’s a scorcher of a day and, when we arrive, it becomes very evident that those not involved in the tournament have been hitting the drink pretty hard since early in the day. Saying that, the players themselves (aside from those taking it very seriously) have clearly been doing much the same thing and so the stage is set for an epic night in the beer tent.

We kick off around 8pm. Our plan is to mix up some of our original tunes with a bunch of crowd-pleasing covers, saving “Johannesburg” until the beginning of the second set. We start at a fairly chilled pace but, within about 20 minutes, the tent is full to bursting and the people are demonstrably ready to let loose. As we begin chucking in upbeat songs of our own such as “Emily”, and pot-boiling covers like “Bohemian Like You” and “A Little Respect”, the atmosphere is really starting to cook.

Our nerves fade away as the crowd surges towards the stage and the energy we’re giving out is matched easily by the energy coming back off the audience. It’s smiles all round. I can tell that we’re winning them over. After a short break we return with Set Two, which is where we properly seal the deal. We kick off with “Johannesburg”, explaining the story behind the song and, I’m happy to say, inspiring a mass sing-along from people who have never heard the tune before. As Alex James writes in his autobiography “Bit Of A Blur”, you know you’ve got a good song on your hands when the crowd are singing along by the end of the first chorus. And they were.

As the evening draws on and we get louder, the people get rowdier and the sun drops lower, I’m riding on a wave of adrenaline. People are hugging and kissing and dancing with each other. The police are hovering outside. Fully-naked men are throwing themselves across beer-flooded picnic tables. It’s magnificent, rip-roaring rock ‘n’ roll chaos.

Suddenly, I realise what I have to do next.

My first ever stage-dive.

The circumstances are primed. Two thousand party animals are writhing as one in front of me. I’ve drunk just the right amount of beer to blunt the hard edge of caution whilst remaining capable enough to avoid grievous injury. I am poised. I am ready to fly.

Then, out of the blue, I am beaten to it. By an FHM supermodel.

And not everybody can say that.

Roxy Louw, South Africa’s foremost supermodel and a regular in lad-mag FHM, has mounted the stage during my period of prevarication and launched herself spectacularly into the crowd. I watch her surf about on the turbulent sea of excited hands, amused by the huge mob of pissed-up blokes virtually goggle-eyed at the opportunity to legitimately grope one of the world’s hottest women.

Whilst in some ways I can’t help but feel like a bit of a disappointment after the delivery of a supermodel, I resolve nevertheless to join the throng. After a run-up that would make Evel Knievel jealous, I bounce in a high, smooth arc from the stage onto the moving platform of heads and hands. What a glorious moment. Everybody is singing around me. I have come home. This, as they say, is it.

It’s a hot and sweaty night that sees many more stage-dives and a slew of encores. The organisers manage to keep the police at bay (just) and ask us to come back and play again tomorrow night. Sporting legend Bobby Skinstad calls us “the best band in the world”. He’s never seen Toploader play live, of course, but we’ll forgive him that.

“The real stars of Day One are The Lightyears, who 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…”
RUGBY 365.COM (read full article here)

SUNDAY 8 MARCH, 10am (My hotel room, Cape Town):
When I wake up, I have the fear. That distant, indefinable fear you sometimes get the morning after the night before, when the heady cloud of a hangover keeps you from pinpointing exactly what it is you did last night that you’re about to begin regretting.

At breakfast, I’m halfway through my smoked salmon, toasted muffins, hollandaise sauce, tuna steak and home-made guacamole when it slowly but surely dawns on me. After we left the stage yesterday following our fourth encore, I was approached by a promoter interested in booking us for a show in Johannesburg later in the year. I gave him my business card but he didn’t have one himself so he wrote his landline and mobile phone numbers down on the nearest available piece of paper – which happened to be a flyer for a local strip-joint. I didn’t think a great deal of it at the time, popping it down on the desk in my hotel room before crashing into a deep and happy sleep.

Something important, however, has just occurred to me.

Housekeeping.

The time I’ve spent in this hotel thus far has confirmed to me that the housekeeping staff are ruthlessly efficient when it comes to clearing up after messy British rock bands. Anything that appears to be rubbish is likely to be binned pretty sharpish. And there’s a good chance that the crumpled flyer in question, decorated with its illegible scribblings and tacky, pornographic imagery, would be immediately deemed as fit only for the bin. And this could lose us a potential gig in Johannesburg. I have to do something.

Making my excuses I dash out of the breakfast room and pelt across the lobby to the lift. I don’t know if you’ve ever spotted this but lifts rarely respond quickly enough when you’re in a hurry. When I finally make it back to my room, it immediately becomes clear that I’m too late. The beds are expertly made and the room is spotless. They’ve been. And they’ve taken the flyer.

The odds are stacked against me but I’m hoping against hope that I’ll be able to trace the flyer by working out which member of staff cleared out my room. It’s a long shot but I’m left with little choice. The concierge ought to be my best bet, I figure, so I head back down to the lobby, take a seat at the front desk and ring the bell. Presently the concierge appears wearing a neat uniform and a funny little hat.

“Can I help sir?” he asks, sitting down opposite me.

“Ah, yes, that would be great thanks. You see, the thing is, I left a really rather important piece of paper in my room this morning and I think the housekeepers have thrown it away.”

“Oh,” he replies, his expression dropping.

“… Yes, I know. Bit of a stretch, I realise that, but I was wondering if the housekeeping department would be able to keep an eye out for it in case it turns up?”

Duty-bound to humour my doomed mission, the concierge produces a small notepad from his top pocket and clicks the end of a shiny silver pen.

“Could you describe it for me?”

At no point in this little crusade had it occurred to me that, in order for the hotel staff to “keep an eye out” for my lost flyer, they’d need to know what it looked like. And what it looked like was, to be brutally honest, an oiled-up pole-dancer with her baps out.

“OK, erm, so…. this is what it looks like…” I stammer, stalling for time, searching for a polite way of describing a photo of a nude sex-worker. “So, it’s black, and sort of gold round the edges. Rectangular, probably a little crumpled. There are some important phone numbers written on it. It’s maybe eight inches long, three wide….? And, erm… I guess that’s about it.”

A short pause.

“And there’s a fully naked chick on the front.”

The concierge raises his eyebrow. “And you say this leaflet has very important phone numbers on it?”

“It does,” I reply.

He allows himself a wry smile. “Yes, I wouldn’t want to lose phone numbers of that nature either”.

Oh god. They think I’m a pimp. But it’s too late to back-pedal now. “No,” I offer with a nervous laugh, “I guess not.”

Note to self: mistakenly introducing oneself as a pimp to the concierge at a five-star hotel – even if it is Snoop Dog’s hotel – may reasonably be considered an unwise move.

SUNDAY 8 MARCH, 6.30pm (Hamilton Rugby Club, Cape Town):
Today we swagger into the Cape Town Tens exhuding an easy confidence, satisfied that last night’s high-octane performance has permanently ingratiated us with the locals. As we stroll through the front gates of the club, suited and booted and carrying guitar cases, the MC momentarily ceases in his commentary of the current rugby match to announce “Ladies and Gentlemen, The Lightyears have arrived!”. To my childish delight this prompts spontaneous applause from all round the ground. This is definitely the closest we have ever come to “Elvis has left the building”…

Today’s gig starts with the laid-back swing of a Sunday evening, but before long it has erupted into a party to rival last night’s performance. There’s more stage-diving, plenty of sing-alongs, police hovering outside and a lot of sweating. Afterwards we hit the clubs for our final taste of the Cape Town lifestyle, and are able to beat the queues at Cafe Caprice, the city’s trendiest night-spot, on account of arriving with Bob, who is pretty much regarded here as the country’s answer to David Beckham.

Standing outside the club several hour’s later, watching the waves lap at the beach and feeling the warm night air on our faces, we reflect on the tour.

“We’ll always have Cape Town, boys,” muses John, prophetic as ever.

Bob’s brother Dan, A.K.A. The Commander (and something of a legend about the town), throws his arms round us and nods his head in agreement.

“It can only get better boys,” he says, “it can only get better. Which, when you think about it, is actually quite scary.”

Which, I reflect, is exactly how I like it.

Chris Lightyear

We are staying in JACK BAUER’S hotel…

TUESDAY 3 MARCH, 3pm (Brass Bell Restaurant, False Bay, South Africa):
I am dressed in shades, boardies and flip-flops. I am starting to look quite tanned, having spent a decent amount of time on the beach over the past few days. I am exhuding an easy, care-free demeanour on account of the sunny weather and the leisurely pace of the Cape Town lifestyle. I am drinking a crisp gin and bitter lemon. The afternoon waves of the Indian Ocean lap hungrily at the walls of the famous Brass Bell restaurant in False Bay, where we’re enjoying a few cocktails and a plate of delicious fried calimari.

Bearing all this in mind, I find it very hard to reconcile the fact that, glancing across the road to a world news poster nailed to a lamp-post, I can read the words “SNOW SHUTS LONDON”.

That’s right – were we at home right now, we’d be building snowmen and perhaps even doing some sly a-wassailing. Yesterday London experienced its most severe snow storms in 18 years. The whole of the capital ground to a halt, which in theory ought not to have affected us all the way out here in South Africa, but as it happened we were waiting for Tony to leave Heathrow and come out to join us in Cape Town. The airport cancelled a staggering 800 flights. Only six actually left the runway and Tony, the jammy rascal, was on the sixth. Which was just as well, as tomorrow night we’re headlining at the Speedway 105 Cafe and we’d been rather relying on Tony’s presence to complete the line-up!

It’s been a wonderful few days. Aside from a few casual, sun-kissed meetings and the odd telephone interview, the business end of the tour hasn’t really started yet. We’ve made the most of our long weekend of freedom with afternoons on the beach and evenings on the town. Yesterday we took a day trip out to Hermanus, a beautiful coastal resort about an hour outside Cape Town, where we walked along the cliffside and Andy cooked us a traditional South African braai, complete with fresh steak, calimari and a dollop of local hospitality.

Yesterday evening I was interviewed by a journalist from The Argus, one of Cape Town’s foremost daily papers (click here to read the article). I conducted the interview strolling along the sand, listening to the ocean and watching the sunset. If only, I thought, I could conduct all my interviews from the beach. What a life that would be…

WEDNESDAY 4 MARCH, 9pm (Speedway 105 Cafe, Cape Town)
Tonight we are playing our first fully-fledged show in South Africa – a headline slot at the Speedway bikers’ bar – and I’m delighted to report that there’s a full house in. What a genuine pleasure it is to visit a new territory, set up camp in a new venue, and watch as the place fills with an audience of complete strangers. I’m excited about performing again and it’s great to have Tony back on the team.

The Scandinavian motorbike club from Saturday night have returned, which I find extremely flattering, since by their own admission they don’t normally listen to anything except Motorhead and AC/DC. Could be an interesting audience. Will we win them over? 

Well, yes, as it turns out. Although for a while it’s looking dicey. We decide to split the evening into two sets, starting with 45 minutes of Lightyears originals and ending with a set of dance numbers. We chuck in “Beat Alive”, “She’s The One”, “Fine”, “Sleepless” and “Emily” too. The crowd respond really well to our songs and the first official airing of “Johannesburg” proves a hit as well. During the break I’m standing at the bar waiting for a beer when the bikers’ ringleader taps me on the shoulder.

“Do you play heavy metal?”

Jings. Should I lie? Mainly we’d been planning Jerry Lee Lewis, Van Morrison and The Monkees for set two. Is there any way in which “I’m A Believer” could be considered metal? Probably not.

“Erm, d’ya know, I’m afraid to say we don’t. It’s not really our ‘thing’.”

“Come on,” he replies, throwing back his big scary Norwegian biker’s head. “Led Zeppelin! You must do some Led Zeppelin! It is the classic of all times.”

I heartily agree with him that, yes, it is the classic of all times – but sadly it’s just not in our repertoire. He’s pretty persistent though and so, by the end of our conversation, I’ve agreed to ‘see what I can do’. I have no idea what I mean by this.

Racking my brains, I remember that last year, when we were on the bill at the launch of State music magazine in Dublin, I played a set of ‘Easy Listening Heavy Metal’ on the grand piano, comprising a whole host of rock classics performed in a lounge style. And one of them was “Black Dog” by Led Zeppelin. Was this a good idea? Would the bikers appreciate the irony?

Dash it all, I thought. I have no choice. This is the only thing we do that even vaguely resembles Led Zeppelin. It will have to suffice.

And so it is that, twenty minutes later, to break up the set, I make an announcement. 

“The extremely fine ladies and gentlemen in the corner there have requested some Led Zeppelin, and we’ve never been a band to let people down. So here’s ‘Black Dog’ – Track One, Side One from the classic album Led Zeppelin IV……”

I’m glad to say that the ensuing performance – although perhaps not quite what they were expecting – prompts enthusiastic applause from the petrolheads and I come to the conclusion that we’ve got away with it. This is later confirmed when we encore with “New York, New York” and it brings the house down. Andy’s brother, Dan, confesses to me after the gig that the sight of twenty leather-clad bikers singing their hearts out to Frank Sinatra brought a tear of joy to his eye and was something he would never, ever forget. 

THURSDAY 5 MARCH, 1.30pm (The Table Bay Hotel, Cape Town):
Today we check into the hotel where we’ll be staying for the remainder of the tour. I’ve been looking forward to this moment. By reputation, the Table Bay is the finest hotel in Cape Town and, in fact, one of the top hotels in the country. It’s a glorious day and the sun is beating down as we arrive outside the front entrance and unload our luggage and instruments. Spotting our guitars, the concierge immediately saunters over.

“Hello sir, how are you today?”

“I’m extremely well thank you,” I reply, absolutely meaning it.

“You’re musicans, right?” he points out, astutely.

I nod in agreement and this prompts a barrage of stories about previous musical residents of the Table Bay. “We’ve had all kinds of bands checking into the hotel over the years,” he explains.

“Who was the last musician to stay here then?” I ask, testing the water.

“Snoop Dogg,” he begins, casually. “We’ve had Kanye West too. And Maroon 5 were here last month. Plus we’ve also had Counting Crows, Robbie Williams and Michael Jackson. The Table Bay is the only place Michael will stay when he’s in Cape Town. I’ve met him personally.”

He can see I’m impressed. But he’s not done yet.

“Oh, and Keifer Sutherland. Keifer Sutherland often stays here. Nice fella.”

We are staying in JACK BAUER’S hotel. 

Rock and roll.

THURSDAY 5 MARCH, 7.30pm (The Toad In The Village, Noordhoek, Cape Town):
We are at The Toad In The Village, a bar/restaurant in the rather quaint Noordhoek, owned by legendary former Springbok captain, Bob Skinstad. We’ve been invited along to the launch party for the ‘Noordhoek Vikings’, one of the teams taking part in the Cape Town Tens Rugby Tournament this weekend. This will be our first proper experience of hanging out with large gangs of rugby players.

We turn up early and take our designated seats at a long, wooden dining table by at the far end of the room. The other half of the table is empty. It transpires that we are to be joined shortly by six or seven professional rugby players from the ‘Sports Illustrated Legends’ team, a side headed up by Bob himself, along with Robbie Fleck, another former South African international who is also involved in organising the tournament. The guys are coming along tonight to meet the rest of their team-mates and sink a few* lagers.

We’ve been there for about 15 minutes when a group of enormous blokes appear through the main entrance and head towards our table. As they arrive, I stand up to introduce myself to the guy at the front. The blood drains from his face. 

“Who are….. what is…. erm…?”. He seems shaken. “What position do you play?”

Odd greeting, I think. My next thought concerns how powerful, almost debilitating, his handshake is. He still looks a bit freaked out. Then the penny drops. Blimey. They think we’re on their team. 

“Oh gosh, gosh no. Hah! No. I’m not a rugby player. Golly. No. Imagine that! You’d probably snap me in half. I mean, look at you, you have arms like anacondas.”

Actually, I didn’t say that last bit. But I did think it. Danny later tells me that he was transfixed for the entire evening by the sight of me sitting next to a bloke whose biceps were WIDER THAN MY HEAD. I could have climbed inside his arms and made them my home. “You look so tiny,” Danny kept saying. Yeah, whatever mate. I could play rugby. I just choose not to.

By the time I have finished shaking hands with all seven of them, the bones in my right hand have been ground to a fine powder. I may never play piano again.

FRIDAY 6 MARCH (Hamilton Rugby Club, Cape Town):
Earlier this evening we sat down to a truly delicious dinner on the harbourside near the hotel. Tanned, rested and fully settled into laid-back Cape Town life, we sat round the table beaming at each other, soaking up the warm night air. John summed up the feeling most succinctly when he said: “I can’t ever remember being this happy”.

Despite being so chilled out we could almost have sat there until sunrise, we decide to head over to Hamilton Rugby Club (where the Cape Town Tens are kicking off with an evening of hardcore boozing) to show our faces and generally get a feel for the vibe of the tournament. The matches themselves don’t start until Saturday but, as the recreational side of the event is generally considered equally as important as the sport, we figure it would do us good to get a taster before things kick off for real tomorrow morning.

When we turn up we are greeted by a sobering sight – 600 huge rugby players, standing around, necking pints and challenging each other to violent drinking games. Once again we are suddenly made very aware of how much we stand out. Feeling like Year 7s who have just accidentally wandered into the Year 11 common room and are met for the first time by that bewilderingly unfamiliar cocktail of sweat, Lynx deodorant and Tizer, we head cautiously for the bar, trying our hardest not to make eye contact with anyone. 

We are mere seconds from our destination when the mission fails. We’ve been spotted. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen one of those wildlife programmes where leopards are filmed hunting gazelles, but this is pretty much a human equivalent. Looking back over my shoulder I see young Danny Morriss being picked off from the herd by a man off such terrifying visage that I can actually feel my sphincter tightening. He seems to be trying to engage Danny in conversation, although the sounds coming from his mouth are definitely not words and his only other method of communication is to squish Dan’s immaculately-engineered mohican with his enormous hand until it’s entirely flat on his head. I am genuinely torn between the two conflicting instincts in my gut – one is telling me to stick by my friend and wade in for rescue, the other is telling me to sod Danny and run away screaming like a tiny little girl.

For the first time, I am beginning to feel quite nervous about this weekend’s gigs. These people will be our audience. Will they accept us as their own or will they weed us out as the namby-pamby pretenders we are? And if they do accept us, will we have to drink our own urine through a plastic funnel as part of some kind of dreadful initiation ceremony? At the moment, they’re curious about us because we’re quite demonstrably outsiders – but maybe once we’ve been up onstage, we’ll have more authority.

“Do you think it’ll be better once they know who we are?” I ask George, praying for the answer ‘yes’.

“No mate,” replied George, “it’ll be worse. Because they’ll know who we are.”

***

Will we survive a weekend boozing with rugby players? Will Cape Town rock to the sweet sound of The Lightyears? Stay tuned for Part 3 of my South African tour diary, coming soon to www.TheLightyears.com.

* a “few” to me is approximately three. To a rugby man, it is somewhere in the region of twelve.

The tour has begun…

FRIDAY 30 JANUARY, 2.30am (International Airspace, somewhere over Africa):
This is one of my favourite parts of any tour. I am on the plane, 40,000 feet above the ground, cruising at speeds of 600 mph. I am approximately four gin and tonics into an evening of steady boozing, courtesy of British Airways. Our hot-off-the-press recording of “Johannesburg“, finished only yesterday in Tony’s home studio, is playing in my ears. In a few hours we will land in Cape Town, South Africa, where anything can and will happen on this, the latest instalment in our ongoing International Rock & Roll Juggernaut Tour. Right now, the distinct aroma of possibility hangs expectant in the air. Although come to think of it, that might just be Danny.

The Lightyears are about to land.

FRIDAY 30 JANUARY, 7.30am (Hertz Car Rental, Cape Town, South Africa):
Cape Town is gloriously warm. Emily and Skinny meet us at the airport with glowing tans (they’ve been in South Africa for a month already), a shining example of how we hope to look by the end of our ten days here. Job number one is to sort out the hire car, so George and I saunter over to the Hertz outlet to pick up the keys.

Now, until we’re at the stage where we get to travel around in a double-decker blacked-out nightliner replete with arcade games, plasma TVs, strippers and a ready supply of mind-enhancing hallucinogenics, we are somewhat restrained by having to work to a budget. Luckily, Tony’s dad is in the motor trade and was able to find us a great deal on a nifty little vehicle known as the Volkswagen Chico. For only £11.50 a day we would be licensed to career around Cape Town looking like refugees from Staines in an automobile that can really only be described as a “chavwagon”. In other words, if you’re driving this car and you don’t have So Solid Crew pumping out of the sound system, you’re doing something wrong. 

Standing at the service desk and waiting for the clerk to finish scanning our credit card and checking our details, we begin to share a collective concern that maybe everything isn’t going to go as planned. He keeps giving us funny looks out of the corner of his eye and it suddenly occurs to me that, dressed up in shades and shaggy haircuts and surrounded by guitars, we are very obviously in a band. And would you hire a vehicle to a bunch of foreign reprobates in a rock band? Exactly.

“So…..” the clerk muses, “four guys, eh? Musicians?”

“Erm….” (no sense in lying – I mean, I could say we were ballerinas but unfortunately the evidence to the contrary is damning), “yep. Just in from London”.

“London, eh? Well, thing is, we don’t have any Chicos left”.

Bugger. We’ve been rumbled. Push-bikes it is then.

“Can I interest you in one of these?” he offers with a nod, pointing at an A4 laminate featuring a whole range of cars we couldn’t possibly hope to afford. Before we can utter an objection though, he cuts us short. “Same price,” he says, a twinkle in his eye.

Surely not. The man is indicating an 8-seater VW Transporter – our ideal car.

Throwing each other furtive glances like 12 year-old boys who have just been told it’s OK to shoot at cats with their dad’s rifle, we garble some “thank you”s, grab the keys off the clerk and leave hastily before Ashton Kutcher’s able to turn up and tell us it’s all a big joke. 

I don’t know exactly who that guy was but I can only think he must have been Santa, gripped by an out-of-season rush of altruism. For the car that he has gifted unto us is a shining stallion of wonder. A glorious, pimped-out, brand new, 2.5 litre, 4-motion hunk of beautiful steel. And it’s all ours. Out of respect, we name it “Chico”.

The tour has begun.

(n.b. Tony, who is hiring an alternative car as he’s not flying out for another few days, will almost certainly turn up in Cape Town to pick up his Chico and receive, well, an actual Chico. Which will look puny alongside our behemoth. This thought alone keeps me roundly amused for several days. At times I would even wake up at night, remember it, and chuckle surreptitiously to myself).   

SATURDAY 31 JANUARY, 9pm (Speedway 105 Cafe, Cape Town):
Our main reason for being here in South Africa is to headline at the after-parties for the first-ever Cape Town Tens Rugby Tournament next weekend. However, never a band to rest on our laurels, we have already booked another couple of gigs for the coming week at Speedway 105, a bikers’ bar in the centre of town. Tonight we are performing unplugged on the balcony and on Wednesday (when Tony has arrived) we’ll be playing a full band show inside.

Speedway is run by identical twins Dave and Paul Van Der Spuy, veritable movers ‘n’ shakers on the Cape Town scene. They’re also absolute chaps. They have the banter of Morecambe & Wise and the hospitality of saints. Dave’s wife, Janie, works in PR and is on the case with promoting “Johannesburg” to the local press, and between the three of them they have pretty much made Speedway our home from home in South Africa. The vibe this evening is pretty laid-back, and George and I are sitting on stools on the balcony, knocking out a string of acoustic tunes for a mixed audience of bikers, drinkers, regulars, friends and the rest of The Lightyears’ entourage.

It’s a great opportunity to try out “Johannesburg” on a native audience – and its maiden voyage proves successful. The song is simple and uplifting, I guess, which makes it very accessible, especially here in SA where the significance of the story behind it becomes even clearer (check out my blog “The Story Behind Johannesburg“ for the full tale). Later in the evening, Janie tells me she found it very moving and is confident we can get some good South African press on the band, using the song as our angle.

Liberated by the easy atmosphere and unplugged setting, George and I bust out some old tunes which don’t normally get an airing at LYs gigs – “Snog Song”, for instance, which we wrote years ago with our good friend Ben Scriven. It’s a song about inventing a love potion and getting jiggy with the Queen. Obviously. Try requesting it at a Lightyears gig one day – we’d be duty-bound to play it…

Afterwards things a get bit hectic when a group of Norwegian petrolheads start tearing up the tarmac with their enormous bikes. Danny, who knows a lot more about bikes than I do (not hard), explains that they are “doing burnouts”. When I ask him what a “burnout” is, he says “Wait and see – but there’ll be tons of smoke and a lot of noise”.

FYI, a burnout is essentially the biker’s equivalent of a crop circle – revving one’s engine and spinning the back tyre round in a perfect circle, on the axis of the front wheel, to leave a dark circular imprint on the tarmac. I think this a bit like when cats wee on stuff. It’s an imperial venture, in other words. It says “Me and massive bike have been here and there’s nothing you can do about it”. 

Unless you’re the local law enforcement agency, that is. Sure enough the cops have made an appearance within about twenty minutes, attracted by the noise. Driving in through Speedway’s main gates, they slowly circle the parking lot like a predatory steel shark and, once satisfied that they’ve made their point, disappear back into town.

The bikers, who personally I wouldn’t mess with, wait a cursory eight minutes and then return to the business of decorating the car park. This is brilliant! Will there be a ruckus though, I wonder? Who would you back? Probably the petrolheads. They’re Scandinavian and there are about twenty of them. The cops looked like they were all talk and no trousers. Having said that, when they return shortly afterwards and repeat their shark routine, it proves sufficient to put an end to the burnout competition and everybody retires inside to watch the arm-wrestling. 

There’s always something going on at Speedway. Gotta love the place… 

SUNDAY 1 FEBRUARY, 11.30pm (Cafe Caprice, Cape Town):
We are out clubbing in Cafe Caprice – a place justifiably known as “the jewel in Cape Town’s crown” that represents the centre of the city’s Sunday night social scene. The people in here are ALL beautiful. Big, bronzed Adonises of men and gorgeous, glowing women, pictures of youth and vitality. It’s like actually being in an episode of “The O.C.”. 

Whereas in England we while away God’s day with a back-to-back marathon of Songs Of Praise, The Antiques Roadshow, Last Of The Summer Wine and a toasted crumpet, Sunday is big business in Cape Town. Everybody parties here on a Sunday. We spent the early half of the evening at coastal hangout La Med, where local band Goldfish play a residency to an ample and enthusiastic crowd, week in week out. I mean, I say “local” – actually they are fast becoming one of the country’s hottest acts. Definitely worth a look – imagine Lemon Jelly meets Fatboy Slim. Click here to visit the Goldfish website. 

At La Med we meet Cape Town Tens organiser Ron Rutland, an absolute chap and the man responsible for flying us out to SA. He seems relatively calm on the surface; however, being only five days away from the first ever CT 10s tournament is evidently starting to take its toll on his sanity. There’s a lot riding on this and Ron is the man at the helm…

After a few beers at La Med we hit Caprice, on the advice of the legendary Dan Skinstad (A.K.A. “The Commander”), who seems to be something of a celebrity round these parts. Dan has a natural entourage at Caprice and we join them for a few bevvies to see the week out. Later I learn that, during our time in the club, George ended up in a fairly extended conversation with star cricketer Herschelle Gibbs, a member of the national team. At no point throughout their chat did George have any idea who the guy was. In fact, I believe his closing gambit was “So, tell me – what exactly is it that you do?”. I can’t imagine Herschelle is a man accustomed to being asked that question, what with him being generally considered one of the finest athletes in his country’s history.   

It dawns on me that, for a band who (Tony aside) know very little about sport, we’ve met some top flight sports personalities. Bob Skinstad and Robbie Fleck organise the Cape Town Tens with Ron and both happen to be global sporting legends from their days playing for – and in Bob’s case, captaining – the South African rugby team. Later in the week we will meet more rugby superstars in the guise of former Canadian international Eddie Evans and Italian Number 8 Matt Phillips. A couple of years ago we stayed in the same hotel as the Dutch national football team (in one particularly memorable incident, Tony stood next to Marco Van Basten in a lift and actually used the phrase “Do I know you?”). We have performed for Manchester United and Alex Ferguson, hob-nobbed with Peterborough FC director and all-round sporting hero Barry Fry and now George has failed to recognise one of the world’s most famous cricketers in a club. So all in all we could make a lot of fanatics very jealous, even though as a general rule we don’t know our silly mid-ons from our bogeys.

***

Stay tuned for South Africa Part Two – and find out what happened when we tried playing Frank Sinatra to 30 pissed-up Scandinavian bikers…

Chris Lightyear

“You’re ‘avin a giraffe mate!”

WEDNESDAY 17 SEPTEMBER, 1.30pm (Time Square, New York, USA):
“I’m driving a van! Through Time Square! I’m James Bond!”

Tony is driving a van. Through Time Square. In doing so he is fulfilling a lifelong ambition and is having an absolute ball in the process.

A cab driver tries cutting us up and soon regrets it. Within seconds Tony’s head is out of the window unleashing a patter of mockney road-rage.

“Oi! Watchit mate! [pause] Nah mate, I ain’t moving. C’mon, you could get a bus through there! [another pause] Wot?! You’re ‘avin’ a giraffe!” 

The phrase “You’re having a giraffe” causes much hilarity and confusion amongst the Americans in our entourage. For in-depth analysis from a New Yorker’s POV, check out Ashley’s Guest Blog. Suffice it to say that they simply couldn’t get their head around the connection between a long-necked, land-dwelling mammal and an Italian-American cabbie.

The van in which we are travelling, by the way, is a truly beautiful machine. “Stella The Wonderbus” has clearly hosted many a touring band over the years but remains in fine condition, affectionately graffitied with phrases such as “Man Love” and “I ♥ NY”. We are employing Stella to drive into Philadelphia for a headline show at Milkboy Coffee, a venue we habitually refer to as our second home.

The first time we drove down the New Jersey turnpike back in 2006, Tony greeted the prospect with tangible excitement – it was another one of those activities that he wanted to cross off his list of Things To Achieve In Life.  By now the NJ turnpike is virtually an old friend of ours, a regular fixture in our lives. It’s also become fully apparent that, any romantic notions aside, it’s really just a bloody long road with lots of massive trucks on it. Why, we could almost be on the A329M cruising into Reading. Except you can’t get Taco Bell on the A329M. And that, believe me, is a crying shame. Little Chef is NO substitute for the Bell.

When we arrive at Milkboy in the picture-perfect town of Ardmore, Pennsylvania, it’s almost deserted. Two hours later, the sun has gone down and the place is full of Lightyears fans. This is why I adore Ardmore. It’s like coming home.

Oh, and the other reason I adore Ardmore is PEANUT-BUTTER MILKSHAKES. I believe I have made enough of this obsession of mine in previous blogs so I won’t harp on about it. But, if you’ve never had one, fly to Pennsylvania now and make a beeline for the Milkboy Coffee House. You won’t be disappointed.   

The Milkboy is a real listening venue, and we love those kind of gigs. Rocking out in a sweaty club is a lot of fun but there’s also something to be said for shows where your audience hangs on every note you play – and this is one of them. We open with Fine and build slowly through Girl On The Radio and Home For The Weekend into all the upbeat stuff – Sleepless, Beat Alive and Emily, as well as some tunes that will be new to this crowd such as Brightest Star and Run.    

As a general rule, and to quote Tony, when we play the Milkboy “something always goes catastrophically wrong”. It could be the sound-desk failing, or my module packing up, or George’s guitar falling to pieces – but it’ll always be something. I am, therefore, delighted to report that on this occasion the whole shooting match goes without incident. We play, if I do say so myself, a rather cracking show and the atmosphere in the venue is fantastic. Fans tell me afterwards that they’ve never seen the place that busy on a Wednesday night. 

Being the kind of band never to turn down an after-party we are soon whisked back to Riverton, New Jersey, where Maureen has opened up her famous porch to one-and-all and plays host to an abundance of merriment, gin & tonics and some really delicious little cakey things which I think the Americans call “biscuits” (even though, of course, we know that a biscuit is a hard-baked confectionary product. Not a cake. Still, they’re scrumptious). 

THURSDAY 18 SEPTEMBER, 7.45am (Maureen’s Yard, Riverton, New Jersey):
Once again, we were up last night until the wee small hours. However, respite is short-lived as we are forced to prise ourselves out of bed at 7.30am in order to get back to New York in time for a day of meetings and, in the evening, an impromptu studio session with a producer we met a couple of days ago in Manhattan.

Fortunately for us, the day starts in the best possible way – with Breakfast At Maureen’s. Supertramp may have recorded a hit album called Breakfast In America but they never had Breakfast At Maureen’s, so whadda they know? Not a lot, I’d say.

Scrambled egg, potatoes, crispy bacon, coffee, fresh orange juice, more biscuits (the American kind), several varieties of tea… we’re in heaven. The sun is shining and Riverton is looking resplendent. If only we had the time to shoot the breeze and admire the view; however, New York beckons. We say our goodbyes, climb back into our trusty steed and head back to The Big Apple.

Thursday passes in a whirl. We have a couple of meetings (most notably with Ariel Hyatt of Cyber PR – an absolute charmer and a fascinating person too – check out her blog here), experience our first ever Wendy’s burger (hearty, delicious and satisfyingly marketed as “old fashioned hamburgers” – although as far as I can tell the only difference from McDonalds is that the burgers are square), grab a pile of takeaway pizzas and a 12-pack of Buds and head to the recording studio.

Andy Baldwin runs a studio called The Devil’s Backyard in the heart of Chinatown. Funnily enough, by this point in the tour, I could quite easily have ended up in the devil’s actual backyard and not noticed – I am that beat. We paper over the cracks of our exhausted bodies with cheesy pizza and cold, fizzy beer and proceed to bash out a highly-charged version of Emily in under four hours. Andy mixed Morcheeba’s last album and is the John Wayne of producers – I mean, this man is seriously quick on the draw. He’s a machine. Which is just as well because we have a gig tonight on the other side of the East River and time is running seriously short. 

When the clock strikes midnight we decide we really have to dash and so we arrange with Andy that we’ll come back the next morning to finish our vocals before flying back to London. We have received word that fans at the loft party we’re playing in Brooklyn tonight are starting to get restless and that we’d better arrive soon or we could have a mutiny on our hands. There’s only one thing for it. We dash out into the middle of Chinatown and use our by now expert hailing skills to attract the attention of the nearest cabbie. Once inside Tony makes it very clear that the guy needs to step on it and, to his credit, this particular chap takes to the challenge with relish.

He is pelting through the streets, flouting the highway code left, right and centre and taking on fellow motorists by the dozen. Disaster strikes when, on the way into Brooklyn, we hit a killer traffic jam. As it turns out, however, things are just about to get entertaining.

Our cabbie, whom I shall call Luigi for convenience, cuts up some self-important businessman in a goliath 4×4 freelander and obviously raises the guy’s ire because suddenly he’s leaning out the window flinging abuse at our trusty driver: “What are you, some kinda wise guy?” (he pronounces it “woise goi”). I almost guffaw with joy. Surely you have to be in Bugsy Malone to say that.

Somehow we make it to the McKibbin Lofts before our loyal fans have given up the ghost and, by now, they are really ready for a gig. If you ever make it to Brooklyn, you have to check this place out – converted textile mills that have become a mecca for the city’s artists, bohemians and pleasure-seekers. McKibbin is an icon of hipster style. All the dudes hang out here. You almost expect to find the Dandy Warhols jamming in the hallway.

We play a ramshackle unplugged set to a lasciviously boogying mix of artists, musicians and hedonists. We are almost delirious from fatigue and perform as if not playing would cause our hearts to stop. It’s a thrilling, surreal, unforgettable experience. At the last minute, and in an uncharacteristic bout of spontaneous improvisation, Tony re-jigs Banana Republic and gives birth to Obama Republic – he sings along, we sing along, the crowd sings along. It’s two months before the election and campaign fever is peaking across New York, which adds a certain piquancy to an already eccentric evening.   

When the gig ends I’m whisked out the door by Ashley to go pick up another crate of beers. The only option, it seems, is to keep the party going ’till dawn. Gloriously, we end up staying up all night singing Ben Folds and Jeff Buckley, with Tony sticking staunchly to his claim that Hallelujah has “the worst lyrics in the history of music”, even in the face of a room full of people eulogizing over them as indisputably the greatest set of pop lyrics ever written. This commitment to contrariness is one of Tony’s most endearing features. He is the absolute best person to have a debate with, provided you don’t mind things getting a bit heated. Seriously, next time you see Tony, engage him in a discussion about his disdain for Hallelujah. He stores it in his brain right next to “The Cure might be my favourite band but Friday I’m In Love is a load of old dross” and “Humans are genetically pre-disposed to vegetarianism” in the “Opinions Guaranteed To Wind People Up” File. What a legend.

FRIDAY 19 SEPTEMBER, 9am (McKibbin Lofts, Brooklyn, New York):
I wake up at around 9am. It occurs to me almost immediately that I only went to bed at 6am. 

Though whilst I’m on the subject, “bed” may be a somewhat flamboyant term for a keyboard case and a couple of cigarette packets.

So here we are. The end of the line. A taxi ride back into Chinatown delivers us to The Devil’s Backyard, where we finish the track, say our goodbyes to Andy and head battle-weary for the airport.

What a week. It feels epoch-making, era-defining. Downing champagne and feasting on fillet steaks in Business Class seems a long, long time ago. Particularly since, on the flight home, we are consigned to the Economy Cabin. Economy! No truffles? No quail’s eggs?! No Financial Times?!!

Upon touching down on English soil again on Saturday morning, many soberer individuals would head for the comfort of a freshly-made bed.

But not the LYs. We’re playing a private party in Devon. And we have to be there in four hours. 

We do it because we love it. Pure and simple.

Chris Lightyear

Guest Blog: How many Lightyears does it take to change a lightbulb?

During the band’s recent American Tour, New Yorker Ashley Stubblefield boldly stepped up to the task of tour-managing the boys through their many adventures. To help exorcise her trauma, she wrote a blog about her experiences…

How many Lightyears does it take to change a lightbulb?
by Ashley Stubblefield

To kick things off, let me just say that I spent several hours cleaning my flat last Sunday. Dusting, sweeping, doing dishes and picking up the piles of laundry from my floor. I seeeeeeeriously shouldn’t have bothered with that, as The Destructo-years probably didn’t even notice what a lovely clean home I let them crash in. It was an honor and a privilege (as well as a bit of a trying task) to host three of the UK’s most charming as they made their way Stateside to divide and conquer. Chaos and hilarity ensued… 

At the airport, I met the (surprisingly awake) band and we hopped in a cab to dash off and play in front of thousands at Union Square. My enquiries into the comfort of their flight were met with excited shouts of “Quail’s eggs!”, “Champagne!” and “Business Class has beds!”, all of which are hugely exciting but difficult to decipher when three people are repeatedly yelling only those phrases at you at an extreme volume. So, to calm them down, I started giving them some of the things I had brought for them to use that week.

“Ok, first off, the extra set of keys to my place – who’s the most responsible member of the band?”

Everyone points to Chris, who shrugs. I hand him the keys and a cell phone. “And here’s the phone you’ll be able to use – ”

“There’s a phone?” Chris and George look on in astonishment, whilst Tony, oblivious, is talking to the driver in the front.

“Of course! I have the number written down somewhere… let me just get out my folder for you guys – ”

“You have a folder?!?” Chris is all amazement, and George pulls out the video camera and begins to record the folder. And record me opening the folder. And record me looking at the maps I printed for them.

“And there are MAPS?” Chris, evidently, is not strong on organizing. Or paperwork. If he even keeps paperwork…

The cab however, dropped us in good time at Union Square, where they played a fab show and made billions of new fans who all wanted them to sign a copy of their new EP. You know, the one with the black CD and the black cover? I ran to the store and bought them lovely expensive silver markers to use, asking them not to lose the markers so that they could sign stuff all week. Note to self: Never hand a marker, phone, set of keys, child, elephant etc to a member of The Lightyears if you don’t want it very, very lost within an hour. I wish I were kidding. I am not.

And after the show it’s the after-party (which they refused to call anything other than the “after bobby”. I still have no idea what that means). There was a sweet acoustic set until Tony gave up drumming in favor of beer and George abandoned the guitar to talk to a model. It was a musical crowd though, and two of our cohorts jumped in on the guitar and drums. They stumped Chris with a Weezer song (“El Scorcho”) and my favorite person ever who is named Neil (aka Spitf*ya) did some aaamazing beatboxing. It was a great night and, when the jetlag finally kicked in, we headed back to my flat to crash on various couches and chairs and beds. And by that I mean my one couch, my one chair and my one bed. True New Yorkers (or so I told the boys) do not need space! We successfully slept five there that night, including our friend Alexis who’d been dragged along for the ride. I’m fairly sure every spare inch was covered by a sleeping person or a musical instrument, and Chris spent most of that first night snuggling with his keyboard.

The next day they were up bright and early and ready to explore the city. This is when I discovered that, for The Lightyears, having a good sense of direction is not a membership requirement. As we walked, the guys would inevitably just wonder in a random direction, despite the fact that they had no idea where they were going. It was like herding cats trying to get them even to the diner just a few blocks over. And whenever we got off the subway I’d have to turn around and do a quick head-count to make sure that one of them hadn’t gotten distracted by something shiny and forgotten to get off the train. In Midtown, whilst eyeing all the glitz and glamor, Tony would ask if it was time to go shopping while George would eye the closest restaurant, asking if anyone else was hungry again. It was the overpowering silence after that question that made me realize that we’d lost Chris. Most often we’d find him about half a block down, either distracted by his own hair reflecting in a shop window or reciting full scenes from Wayne’s World (in what was actually a pretty good mid-american accent) to a stranger or traffic cop. I’d gather them all together, point them in the right direction again and hope that Chris wouldn’t come across any ardent Wayne’s World fans before we reached our destination. 

Mid-week, the three misguided ducklings and Alexis and I piled into a van to drive down to Philadelphia for the band’s show at the Milkboy. As we finished loading up in NY, Chris and George came swaggering down the block in outfits that looked strangely familiar. 

Me:  “Chris, are you wearing my scarf?”

Chris, with a hairflip and a I-wish-were-as-cool-as-James-Dean glance at me: “Yeah… is that ok?”

Me: “Well, I… George, is that my jacket? …And my hat?”

George, giving me his I’m-too-adorable-to-be-in-trouble puppy-dog eyes: “We raided your closet a little, hope you don’t mind.” 

Me: “Of course I don’t… Wait! Are you wearing my mascara?”

Chris, very serious: “Actually, Ashley, I think the proper term is MANscara.”

George, pointing at me as though imparting wisdom: “Or guy-liner.”

Right.  

Once Tony had returned from the local Taco Bell with several gallons of Dr. Pepper we hopped in the van – Alexis driving, Tony navigating. After five or ten minutes in traffic, Tony leans out the window and yells: “Are you having a giraffe, mate?” at a passing driver. As the lone Americans in the group, Alexis and I would often stick together, purposefully ignoring the boys’ random slang and inside jokes. This one, however, we could not let go. Alexis plucked up the courage to ask first: “Did you just ask that guy if he’s having a giraffe?”. On cue, all three Lightyears launched into a half-hour explanation of Cockney Rhyming Slang. From what I now understand, it’s something to do with baths and disbelief and not being allowed to pronounce the “T” in mate. 

However, the miscommunication worked both ways and later Tony stopped Alexis and I mid-conversation to enquire after the meaning of “Dude, I was, like, totally pissed at her ‘cos she was being such a jackass to the bartender, but then I bailed on the convo and was like, whatev”. Roughly translated, this means “Yes, person of either gender who I am currently addressing, I was angry with her because she was behaving unkindly to the bar staff, but then I stopped speaking to her and thought to myself that it didn’t really matter”. I’m not even sure I want to know what that translates to in Brit-speak.

In the end, staying in my tiny apartment was a blast – though, as the boys were intent on underlining, it was nothing like the posh suites they stayed in in South Korea, in as much as it is quite lacking a bar, roof-top balcony and a jacuzzi. Oh, and as for the lightbulb question? It wasn’t rhetorical. It must take more than three Lightyears to change a lightbulb because none of them could actually do it. When they asked if there was anything they could do to make up for staying, I told them the one and only thing that needed to be done was fixing the light in the kitchen (I’m too short to reach and it’s been out for ages). Chris tried but couldn’t get the cover off the fixture. George faffed about for a bit and said he’d have a go later and then Tony grappled with it, also unsuccessfully, until eventually tiring of the task and settling down to read the paper. 

“It’s ok,” I told them, more amused than disappointed, “I’ll ask my super to do it.” 

Tony: “Right-o. Sorry about that old bean. Anything else we can fix? You know, so you can make the most of having three burly men around the house?”

Chris: “We could move some heavy furniture for you! Want to see my sweet guns? Go ahead, ask me which way to The Gun Show.” 

I refused. “Right,” he replied. “Then can I borrow your hairdryer?” 

At that moment, George stuck his head out of the bathroom, “Erm, Ashley? Is the handle of your faucet supposed to be broken off like this?”

Are you having a giraffe, mate?

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