The Lightyears on Wikipedia

The Lightyears now have a page on Wikipedia - which is great, 'cos it means we now officially exist. Click here to visit The Lightyears' Wikipedia page. Wikipedia is a collaborative, user-generated, multilingual online encyclopedia - or, in other words, a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. This means that you can add information to our page if you so desire. Do bear in mind though that additions to any Wikipedia page have to be "notable" ...

Things We Love/Hate About The 80s

The news today is that Spandau Ballet are re-forming and becoming the next in a long line of former stadium acts to get back on the road for a mammoth nostalgia tour and the opportunity to perform once again in front of their legions of screaming fans. Take That, Spice Girls, The Police - it's all the rage these days. The cynics consistently interpret moves such as these as transparent attempts to make a fat pile of cash without having to do anything original. "They've just got mortgages to pay", they ...

Lightyears invited back to South Korea

Following the news that we've been invited back to South Africa next year to headline at the international rugby Tens Tournament in Cape Town, we've also been asked out to South Korea this June to perform at The Queen's Birthday Ball in Seoul.  The QBB is an annual fund-raising venture that takes place at The Grand Hyatt Hotel and consistently raises huge amounts of money for Korean charities. The theme for the event changes every year, with past themes including the Chelsea Flower Show, Phantom ...

Fame for fame’s sake…?

The internet is awash with articles about the death of Jade Goody, notorious entrepreneur and former Big Brother phenomenon. Never before has somebody experienced a gradual death quite so publicly - and inspired such a storm of media attention and public debate in the process. Whilst Jade wasn't exactly my cup of tea, her death was undeniably tragic. However, I can't help but feel that there's something terribly crass about the whole affair. The press are patting themselves on the back for "creating" her and, ...

Chris Lightyear to star in Body Gossip premiere

I have been asked to star alongside a cast of celebrities in the world premiere of revolutionary theatre event Body Gossip this Sunday 29 March at The Hub in King's Cross. The Lightyears will be performing after the show - including a batch of new songs not yet heard live - but in addition to this I will be donning my theatre hat to join Anne Diamond, Big Brother's Nikki Grahame, Mikyla Dodd (A.K.A. "The Fat Girl ...

My very own Rock Supergroup

Writing consecutive blogs about Guns N Roses and Michael Jackson has got me thinking about my rock supergroup. To be taken seriously in muso circles, every self-respecting, self-aggrandising rock fan should have their own supergroup, just as they really ought to be able to reel off their Top Five "Track One Side Ones"*** on request. I'll cut to the chase. Whilst I'm on the subject of MJ and GnR, the ...

Have we been played?

  Last week Michael Jackson came out of hiding to announce that he was playing ten shows at the 02 Arena. These were to be his last ever performances in London. This is it, everybody said. This is it, at least, aside from the other forty gigs that were later added to meet the enormous demand for tickets. Even once you set aside the question of whether the lovable old fruitcake will actually make it to show number 50, consider ...

The King & I…

Here's the news - Michael Jackson is coming to London. No, not to dangle infants out of hotel windows, shop for priceless Ming vases or anything batty like that. He's coming here to perform. That's right - ten shows at the O2 Arena in July of this year.  I am very excited. Michael Jackson is one of my favourite artists of all time and, although in recent years he has ...

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 ...

Lightyears invited back to Cape Town

  We've just heard that the organisers of the Cape Town Tens Rugby Tournament we headlined in February would like to us to return to South Africa in February 2010 to play at next year's event. The South African tour was one of our best yet and we completely fell for the place. Cape Town's a beautiful city and the crowds really knew how to party! This year marked the first-ever Cape Town Tens tournament and the weekend was ...

Part One of South African tour diary now online

We returned home from our first-ever tour to South Africa a couple of weeks ago, tanned, refreshed and feeling ever-so-slightly pleased with ourselves. If you fancy finding out what we got up to out there, click here to visit the Tour Diary page and read Part One of my South African memoirs. It's all there - tales of hire-car high jinks, unruly Norwegian bikers and livin' it up Cape Town style. For the media's ...

Great Rock Albums That Never Were – Part One

  So, I've been listening to Guns 'n' Roses a lot this weekend and it's got me thinking about Use Your Illusion - one of the single greatest rock albums never made (technically speaking).  Obviously, Guns released Use Your Illusion parts I and II as a double-album in 1991, representing the follow-up to their blistering debut Appetite For Destruction, and together the two works ...

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, ...