It's been a long hard year, with many ups and downs / and now the summer's here, and we can all come out.

Friday 4 March - now, I'm sorry but I've been really busy at the moment with decorating my house so there's only time for a quick splash 'n' dash of a roundup of our latest outing. This was a RockSound showcase taking place at The Duchess and from the start we all felt the need to grab a pair of free ear defenders from behind the bar, the noise was way too loud. Support came from These City Walls who seemed pretty average to me, which is to say that there was nothing striking about the music, lyrics or stage presense that left any lasting ;memory.

There were three bands being showcased and apparently they take it in turns to be the 'headline' act, so we kicked off with Dinosaur Pile-Up, an alt rock band hailing from Leeds, comprising lead singer and guitarist Matt Bigland, bassist Harry Johns, and drummer Mike Sheils. Musically they reminded me in parts of Nirvana, and Ash, definitely a grunge thing going on there. That said, there was variety in the styles and delivery of each song and I enjoyed them so much that I actually bought their 2010 album Growing pains from the merch stall at the interval. Very good indeed.

This was a bit worrying because it was looking as if my wallet was in for a bit of a battering. Not to worry though, the other two bands weren't a patch on DPU. Next up were The Xcerts a three-piece from Aberdeen; Murray MacLeod (vocals & guitar), Jordan Smith (backing vocals & Bass), and Tom Heron (backing vocals & drums). I'm pretty sure that most of their set was drawn from their album Scatterbrain but none of the material stayed in my head long enough to register before it was blasted out by the next song. The volume was doing nothing to endear me.

The 'headline' act was Japanese Voyeurs, London based and comprising; Tom Lamb (guitar), Johnny Seymour (bass), Romily Alice(vocals/guitar), Steve Wilson (drums), and Rikki Waldren (keyboard). Once more the sheer volume of noise deadened any redeeming factors. Romily looked like a young Avril Lavigne but had a voice like fingernails on the classroom blackboard. Their material was pretty much Paramore with very little variety between each track. If I sound dismissive, I'm sorry. I'm sure that I'm doing these bands (part from DPU) a disservice by my lack of enthusiasm but I really struggled to hear much beyound the volume, and I'm not some miserable old goat, and I have listened to some louder bands who still managed to get their music across, so there's no excuse.