THUMBING through the musical archives I have noticed that today seems to be a very significant date in musical history.

In 1963, The Beatles played their last ever Cavern Club performance and received £300 for doing so, quite a rise from their £5 fee for their first gig. Also that year The Beach Boys released Surfer Girl, the first track to be penned by Brian Wilson. In 2007 guitarist Brian May handed in his astronomy PhD thesis... 36 years after starting it; apparently he had been playing in a band and got distracted. And we can all wish Tony Bennett a happy 90th birthday today. Why not celebrate by going out and watching some live music? He’d like that I’m sure and there is plenty to chose from.

The Acoustic Buzz is back at The Beehive tonight with its latest instalment of roots music, this time headed up by Mark J Lee, a “real-deal, Alt country star” warming up before heading down to Fieldview Festival on Friday. Jane Allison wanders between lilting folk and emotive country, much like your host Blind River Scare.

And as I just mentioned, this weekend does see the always excellent Fieldview Festival get underway; it is a bit outside my geographical brief and I have nothing like the space to do it justice but check out their website, the line up is stunning as always and it is never a festival that disappoints, so do get involved, you won’t regret it.

Also tonight All Ears Avow spearhead a fantastic alternative rock bill with their taut riffs and explosive dynamics; it isn’t hard to see why they are the most popular rock band to come out of the area in a long time. Joining them is Kill The Ideal and Go Primitive but make sure that you get there early enough for openers Chapter and Verse and their seductive, angular vibes.

At The Queen’s Tap, The Rock Bottoms host their own open mic. night and if the band contains a couple of familiar faces then it is because Dan Sealey and Adam Barry are ex-Ocean Colour Scene and ex-Merrymouth respectively.

That mercurial global troubadour Anton Barbeau is back at The Beehive on Friday, lashings of neo-hippy vibes, wondrous pop adventures and strange glam-psych sparkle; think of it less as a regular music journey, more a Julian Cope-ing mechanism, if you get my drift.

Down and Dirty fire off sumptuous rock salvos at The Victoria, not just the expected classic rock fare but some wonderful incursions into progressive worlds, punk street smarts, roots rock and more besides. Things get a bit retro-rockabilly down at The Rolleston, The Bulltown Boys paying tribute to not only the original rockers such as Lewis and Presley but also those revivalists who followed, The Stray Cats and Reverend Horton Heat. The Locarno Beat takes us through the hits of the 60s and 70s at The Queen’s Tap.

Newport’s finest, well some of them at least, hit town on Saturday, as Legends of Goldie Looking Chain, a three man show, hits Level III. Expect the usual mayhem, innuendo, silliness and rap done the Welsh way. It will be so bad, its good. You knows it!

If something with a bit more of a rock feel to it is more to your tastes then the place for you is The Queen’s Tap where Jamie Thyer leads his Worried Men through a set of virtuosic and incendiary blues rock. Think Thorogood, Moore and Stevie Ray, they really are that good. At The Victoria it is contemporary covers from Last Call but this time chosen from the less obvious corners of the musical canon and no doubt given recent events some honorary Linkin Park tunes. Originals open the night courtesy of Fall From Ruin.

The Bebops will be at the Rolleston to answer some of those perennial skiffle questions such as does your chewing gum lose it’s flavour on the bed post overnight and did the Cumberland Gap get bought out by Top Shop?

Finally on Wednesday, Level III will be reeling from a killer three guitar frontline attack with duelling vocalists and more hooks than a Peter Pan convention in the guise of pop-punk heroes Better Than Never. Local alt-rockers A Way With Words will be getting the night under way.