mayfair

LYs to appear in national ad campaign

26 October 2009

The bus driving through Piccadilly Circus (Chris is at the front next to the saxophonist)

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

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

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

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

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

Jamming on an open-top bus!

23 October 2009

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

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

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

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