Inspired by a rainy Thursday night and the music of Chicks, we plodded along to Eamonn Doran's. The Frames were playing in Whelan's, but we decided to give the kids a chance and check out some young local bands. There we stumbled on a low-key affair - MCR promotion. The showcase featured four young Dublin bands that turned out to be neither up nor coming.

The first band on stage was a band called The Loft. These guys have a big future ahead of them... playing 21sts and wedding receptions. Their original material was about as enjoyable as a bout of diarrhoea, but they did some good covers, notably 'Roadhouse Blues' (much to the appreciation of the small crowd - much of which was made up of the band's parents.)

Boomslang were next up and were greeted by the fast disappearing crowd. &qout;This is one of our songs...&qout; No shit! No one else is gonna claim it. In between pleasantries, the two guitarists took hours to tune their guitars. We asked ourselves why they bothered - since the drummer was out of time, the singer out of key, it would seem kind of disappointing if the guitars were actually in tune. Good drummers are hard to come by.

Apparently good singers are also hard to come by. A three-piece called Dewn were next up as the audience continued to disappear. Thanks all the same, but I'll wait for July. Picture Radiohead meeting The Frames in a head on collision, bloody and pathetic.

What can we say about Pump Heroes? I reckon these guys were out sick when their religion teacher covered the Seven deadly Sins. The singer has the stage presence of an alcohol-soaked orang-utan. He could sing, but the crowd's raucous laughter all but drowned out his vocals. He's got all the moves of an angry lap dancer... ladies watch out!

I thought the Dublin music scene was actually getting better, this night was just proof of the current malaise in alternative Irish music. If you took the best bassist, the best guitarist, the drummer and the best singer out of the four bands you'd be still left with something akin to Aslan (no hard feelings Christy).

To think we missed our last bus for this!