And so, once again, on a weekend in Parliament Street, York, we have had a Residents 1st stage featuring live music.

I would like this stage to be renamed Residents Deemed To Have Extremely Limited Taste First, as the music on offer ranges from old soul covers all the way to .... ooh, Billy Joel or Wings. It's almost like an Alan Partridge appreciation afternoon.

Ah, but it's all about being inoffensive and catering to everybody's tastes, you say. Failed on both counts! Hundreds of music fans are offended by such a bland appraisal of what gets their rocks off. And the range of music on offer could only be truly loved by an addict of family weddings and corporate functions.

Fibbers puts 1,000+ through the doors each week and neither the songs of Phil Collins nor Sting are ever murdered once. Instead, hundreds of York citizens, young and old, travel to a little underground club for the type of music which would normally get them beaten up on Micklegate.

It's about time there was better representation, and the staff and customers of Marks & Spencer and the Halifax, in whose name this dumbed-down claptrap is paraded, will just have to put up with it.

Feeling confident after a couple of Fibbers city-centre stages last year, I had a heated debate with council officials and was showered with indignant emails telling me I didn't know what people wanted. No, folks, it's you who don't know what people want. I don't get asked any more.

I have a dream. A couple of hundred emo/ metal/ hardcore kids in Parliament Street are pressed up against a barrier, chucking themselves around like mad. Taking a pride in their city for letting them have a voice and show who they are.

There's no trouble. They don't fight, break windows, abuse taxi drivers or threaten passers-by. They are York's future. Residents' 1st? Don't think so.

Tim Hornsby,

Fibbers,

Stonebow,

York.

Updated: 10:23 Tuesday, January 31, 2006