While we live in hope that the summer will eventually arrive and the sun will start ‘cracking the pavements’ what we do know is that Macclesfield’s Barnaby Festival is coming.

Inexorably it will be with us in a mere three weeks.

There is only a fraction of the contemporary music on this year’s programme compared with last year’s but what there will be is of very high quality.

If you don’t yet know that Peter Hook and the Light is playing for Barnaby at Christchurch on the 23rd then I’m afraid to tell you that you  are too late to do anything about it. It sold out within days of it being announced.

There are, however, tickets still available for another show on Saturday 22 that for me is at least as interesting and while it has been somewhat overshadowed by the Hooky gig it will inevitably be one hell of a party.

The Konkoma Maximum Love Garden Orchestra will make one of its rare but spectacular visits to town appearing at the Snow Goose Live.

There will be a full show with support from Lucas D and the Groove Ghetto, an exceptional funk band from the midlands. Priced at £6 it is a gift and tickets are available through the Barnaby website and at the Tourist Information at the town hall.

Whenever Konkoma visit Macc the already initiated turn out in droves, if you have not yet been ‘Konked’ then grab yourself a  ticket now. You will not be disappointed.

Loominus is also doing a multi-band show on Friday 21 at Snowgoose live with an emphasis on U/18s.

 News just on the wire, is that the Virginmarys are home from their triumphant visit to the USA and a homecoming gig has been announced to take place at the Snowgoose Live on June 29. Predictably tickets for this are flying and are available from the Snowgoose Café bar, website and also The VMs website, not for long I suspect.

They arrived home on Friday and I was fortunate to bump in to Danny Dolan from the band in Cabin 5150 and had a fascinating but all-too-brief conversation with him about his time in America.

They had departed for those shores before the Cabin had even opened but he had been keen to see the place because of a conversation he had had with one Robin Davey, an ex-patriate Brit now resident in Los Angeles and member of the band Well Hung Heart with whom the VMs had shared a bill.

After Danny had identified himself as a Macc resident, Robin brought not only The Feud into the conversation but Cabin 5150 as well. Good news, apparently, travels not only fast but very far as well.

 The Macc Music scene continued apace last weekend with cracking performances from Vavoom at the Macc, which I am reliably informed was excellent, with a fine show from Andy Boote and his chums and also a Macclesfield debut headline from Jeramiah Ferrari at Cabin 5150.

JF is a young band from Manchester which has done something extraordinary. They have ostensibly invented a new sub-genre which they have called Dubby Rock.

While they are one of the very best of a new generation playing classic reggae they have, on many of their original compositions, fused it with flashes of pure rock which at first surprises and then delights the listener.

In their frontman Ryan Barton, they have a genuine star in the making. He has it all, a striking look, an awesome voice and delivery, and a brilliant pen with which he writes instant reggae classics. Still very young, I genuinely believe that this band has the ability to put reggae firmly back in the mainstream.

Fasten your seatbelts for another amazing week of live music with too many gems to choose from.

On Thursday, bring your fire extinguishers to the Cabin to control the fire that Jim Kirkpatrick will inevitably start again at his monthly residency with Heavy Weather.

Friday, the awesome Tommy Allen and Johnny Hewitt play the blues like few others can at the Wharf.

Saturday sees the human explosives Xander and the Peace Pirate at the Cabin for the first time.