“Can’t forget – the strength inside us”
- ‘Bye Rights’
Sixteen years old and one of my favourite bands comes to play at our local venue at the time. Hell, my band even supported them. The night was intense. It all starts with walking into the town in the afternoon and stumbling across them all, hanging around outside the gig by their van. Arriving way too early sometimes has terrible consequences for touring bands, like young fans being star struck right there in the street in front of the touring band. I know I was. Hours later, they’re ripping it up onstage. I vividly remember being in the pit and Matt, a dedicated depressive metal-head, turning to me mid-song and saying “I’m so happy”. That was like God shaking hands with Satan or something! Nigel didn’t even get in to see the bands, he drank a bottle of vodka before the gig and couldn’t get in. Jim jumped onstage halfway through with a blow-up sax and started playing along with the band. How they all fit onto that stage I’ll never know. The place was packed to the rafters. A lot of people have talked about that one night, as the best gig in our hometown in our time, since. I recall thinking that the band must just love to play and have fun because that gig was a charity affair and they had turned up and played for fuck all.
Obviously, I’m talking about the crazy and infamous seven-piece high-octane ska-punk band Lightyear. A band I saw only a handful of times, but the memories of each night still burn bright. They were like a bump of speed straight to the heart. A dagger in an otherwise stagnant music scene. The first time I saw them I hadn’t even heard of them. They just climbed up onto the stage at the Caddy Club to a small audience, one member short, and captured every single person in the place. They were all over the place (physically, not mentally), jumping off the walls (literally) and I stood right in front, in a state of shock. Chas spat a greenie into the air and everyone moved out of the way as to not get hit. Looking around no-one seems to mind; in fact, everyone had huge grins.
Not long after that gig Household Name released their first album ‘Call of the Weasel Clan’, a perfect capture of the band at this point in time. I’m not sure how many copies of that album were sold but for a bunch of nutters from Derby I should think they were quite happy. I say nutters because they were known for their mad gigs with everyone hitting the roof. An example of ‘nuttiness’ offstage would be Beefest 2002. Most of the band were skaters and they skated all through the day before they played. The bouncy castle was the highlight of that gig. About forty of us crammed into this bouncy castle, and instigated by the members of Lightyear, proceeded to run around the edge over and over until eventually the thing toppled over. It was all in the name of fun.
I can’t stress this enough. Yeah, the band was all about the music, all about the lyrics, which I have reprinted snippets of, but above all the band seemed to be about having fun. Everyone having fun, both the crowd and the band. Obviously, I can’t really speak for the band, but all their smiles each time I saw them lead me to believe that they would almost certainly agree. Seeing them all singing ‘Positive Outlook’, whilst the members of Captain Everything played the music, and chasing each other over the stage and through the crowd made you really feel what they were singing: “I know there’s been some hard times but I need you my friend”. They were a band that was serious, lyrically, at time, and the lyrics continue to mean a lot to a whole ton of people who were lucky enough to have seen them. Well, you can’t really sing the music can you?
At Reading Festival one year I bumped into Chas, the lead singer, and he told me the band were splitting up. I was bummed out. Not only that but they were in fact headlining the festival, above Metallica! Technically yeah they were, they were playing after Metallica, but not on a stage. No, that would have been too straight, too organised, and too predictable for them. They were playing under their gazebo in the campsite. I turned up with a few people on the Sunday night and found the area around their campsite full of people. So full in fact that people were moving tents to get closer. Chas opened with a spiel about the band deciding to stop playing together, but before long they started playing. From right behind the drum kit I had a horrible mix of the sound. All I could hear were drums and horns. The generator was nowhere near powerful enough. Either that or they were running it quietly as to not get busted by security. When the words came in everyone started singing. Every single person there was screaming the words. I don’t think Chas even needed to use the mic they had. A sea of maybe two hundred heads, bobbing around in a scattered unison. Everyone just got swept away dancing; but so is the way in a good, cosy pit. Soon enough tents around me got trampled, the gazebo got lifted into the air and after three quick songs security showed up to stop the chaos.
A couple of years later now and we hear Lightyear are getting back together for a reunion tour. I make it up to the hometown gig in Derby to relive it all one more time. In the pit whilst the band is playing everyone is smiling, the atmosphere is really electric, and the band strips down onstage until the majority are naked. Something they did a lot. It’s all just like the ‘good old days’ and they play the longest set ever, because it is their last gig.
It’s kinda hard to convey the sheer energy the band could emit whilst they took their half an hour onstage. Believe me when I say they got everyone going beyond standing and nodding along. I dare you to listen to their stuff and not want to shout, scream, dance and smile along. They sure make me happy, and did so consistently every time I saw them live, something a lot of bands fail to do constantly today. You could say it was just being the right age and seeing the right band at the right time which makes me feel this way. If so I’d like to know whether you throw away all your old music when you realise there’s new stuff out there. I’d also call you a fucking prick for thinking that still liking a certain band is ‘so 1997’ or ‘so 2001’. One of my best friends recently said this to me after I told him I’d been listening to ‘Dude Ranch’. My point is further proven by the fact that his band is probably the most boring pile of absolute tripe I’ve ever heard.
All these thoughts are coming to light because I’ve been spinning ‘Call of the Weasel Clan’ more and more lately. There’s even talk of a tribute album coming out, consisting entirely of Lightyear covers played by a super-fast band called The Steal. If this record does ever surface then I can imagine it being pretty well received, just as long as people are still rooted in the bands and the scene that first made them think, hear, see and really truly feel alive for the first time. Really, I can only speak for myself but I’m sure someone else out there feels it too; they didn’t save my life, but they sure changed it.
Have we seen the last of Lightyear? We’ll have to wait and see. Until then, we can just spin their music, dance around our bedrooms and imagine being back in the crowd just as you hear that intro to ‘Blindside’ and realise that those guys really did create a fucking monster!
“I really think I need some sort of change in my life / How can I feed this fire deep inside of me? / How can I stop this from consuming my life? / One decision to heal personal integrity”
- ‘They Left Today’
