Forget the roof of the Bricklayers Arms, O2 Music Guide’s fondest Razorlight memory has to be the show they played at the Dublin Castle nearly 18 months ago as four wide-eyed, scuzz ‘n’ sawdust garage punk unknowns. Since then they’ve declared themselves “better than Dylan”, lost a drummer to yoga, ambushed Glastonbury and rocked their way into the Top Three of the album chart. But right now they’re about to go back to what they do best – ripping up stages and stealing girlfriends across the UK as headliners on next month’s NME Rock ‘n’ Roll Riot tour. Here Johnny and Bjorn recall five memorable shows you may have missed out on.
1. Rescue Rooms, Nottingham, 27/5/04
Johnny: “Andy’s first gig and the first gig of the now fabled Golden Touch tour. It was just great, Christian had left the band and we’d had Andy in for four days. It was incredible we were actually there at all! I could feel Andy’s excitement. It was our first headline gig outside London and we had a crowd who knew the songs.”
2. The Void, Stoke, 11/10/02
Johnny: “This was one of the worst gigs we ever did. It was our first gig outside London, we didn’t have a name and we were supporting the Jeevas. It was the first time I’d ever worn black jeans onstage and I’m not sure if that had anything to do with it, but as soon as I walked onstage someone shouted, ‘Faggot!’ I thought, ‘Fair enough’ but after the third song some lads decided to shout out “Their drummer’s a faggot’ and made a racist comment. We thought, ‘We’re going to do one more song and then get out of here!”
3.Kingsland Road Fire Station, London, 4/11/02
Johnny: “Before we got any proper gigs we used to play parties and one time we played at this abandoned fire station. It was the gig where we got the name Razorlight. At the end I started going off a bit and speaking in tongues. I was just sort of gabbling – doing a bizaare rant about Madonna and MTV. Then I started screaming, ‘Yeah it’s alright’ and then it sort of mutated into Razorlight.”
4.Chiba Marine Baseball Stadium, Tokyo, 2/8/03
Johnny: “Another great gig we did was at Tokyo Chiba Marine Baseball stadium last year. It was probably the first gig we did outside the country and certainly the first gig we ever played in a stadium to 20,000 people! We were on at 10:30am and from 6:30am people were queuing to get in. When you’re 22 years old and playing a stadium in Japan, well, it’s pretty mad.”
5.T in The Park, 11/7/04
Bjorn: “T In The Park was one of my favourite shows. We’d played in rainy Ireland the day before (at Oxegen), and we had to get up at 6am after just three hours sleep and get on the ferry. When we finally got there it was a nice vibe, we sat in the backstage bit and the tension was mounting but in a really good way! When we hit the stage, it was amazing, the whole thing just lifted and you could feel, like, this shove in your back. It was definitely one of the most natural gigs we’ve ever done. Ah! Sweet times!”