The Amber Herd concert at The Hairy Dog in Derby, UK
Fri, 12 Jun 2015

Need to separate this rating into two: the music and the venue. Let's get the venue out the way first, nothing special, it is what it is, a no frills live music location with a decent selection of ales downstairs (could actually do with replicating this in the bag where the actual bands are). Even though I love 'rough and ready' live music venues, I wonder how many more people will attend these gigs if it was 'spruced' up a little.
Now on to the music: firstly Roz Bruce, two guitarists and a drummer thump out a very Hendrix- esque sound and with the lead vocalist being female, adds a twist of Girlschool to the mix, the result a very loud, rocky, thumping sound which is exactly the right mix and gets a 10/10 from me.

Secondly, Water for Dogs: another first time experience for me, in many ways. Again two guitars but no drummer this time, instead a keyboard player with a thumping drum machine (and none of their tracks have vocals which really does work). How would you describe the sound? Well a good question, as even when asking Chris Sharman, the bassist, I said it's like The Human League meets Gary Numan meets Pendulum meets Orbital meets Jean Michel Jarre, Chris said "yeah add a bit of jazz into that as well as a few other bits into a big bucket, and what seeps out the bottom is what you get" so even they can't describe the sound, however, I can in one word....brilliant.