AND so it was, with a huge collective sigh of relief, that Viola Beach reached number one in the album charts.

For every campaign to get Rage Against The Machine to the Christmas top spot, there are 10 X Factor soon-to-be-rejects lurching towards the finishing line, so be grateful for small mercies.

Truthfully the Viola Beach triumph, and all it means to their families and friends, could be remembered as the start of something, as opposed to the barely-realised potential of what might have been.

An old fart like me usually only gets to latch onto a stellar young band like this far too late. Never has it been more true in this case.

But hopefully the telling epilogue to this phenomenon will be the continued championing of raw, vital talent in the Warrington area.

Lower down the bill than Starsailor, or 80s favourite Nik Kershaw at The Warrington Festival, will be a few of the outfits which already graced the Old Fish Market stage in Golden Square, as part of Warrington Music Festival, earlier in the summer.

This climate of opportunity should also translate across the genres, beyond the twin-guitar approach, to incorporate the entire rap and dance music spectrums.

Even if much of their output does make Podium’s ears bleed.

The alternative, as witnessed last weekend by your correspondent, is the auditions for the next series of Britain’s Got Talent, which took place in an empty unit opposite Costa Coffee in town.

I’ve nothing personal against the hopefuls who queued to secure an audition spot, in the seemingly never-ending quest to be Simon Cowell’s next tired show pony, destined only for the showbiz equivalent of the old glue factory at Widnes.

But fighting your way out of a sweaty back room in a dodgy boozer, a dimly-lit dive in Manchester or Liverpool, or surviving a graveyard slot on the festivals circuit is a much more accurate barometer of whether you possess the requisite star quality to breach the big time.

Live music, in all formats, has even become the order of the day in Jack Fish Corner, at The Halliwell Jones Stadium, on matchdays, so you never know.

Certainly it can’t harm to be within earshot, however distant, of one of the country’s leading promoters...

  •  In the same vein, Guardian readers may want to check out the very worthwhile Crowdfunder appeal currently ongoing for The Brewhouse, in Buttermarket Street in the town centre.

Decades of wear and tear have left the listed building, known to some older patrons as The Old Town House, in need of some TLC via roof and window repairs.

Supporters of the live music mecca have set a £5,000 target and an August 25 deadline, with more details available on their Facebook site.

Otherwise where would the masses gather to bolster the campaign of the man destined to keep the Tories in power for a generation?

  •  Don’t tell Terry O’Neill, Live Wire and Warrington Borough Council (because it might go to their heads) but there’s another little corner of Warrington which is doing rather splendidly this summer.

For the first time in years, the vast open swathes of Bank Park are being put to full use.

The Warrington at the Beach fun park, in the shadow of the Town Hall until the end of August, should be a magnet for desperate parents all through the summer holidays, complementing Pirate Island as an essential energy-sapper for the town’s lively tykes.

Besides which, the open-plan new bowls pavilion and playground, have added an atmosphere which is more fiesta than foreboding, if you remember the dingy block and tired swings and slide they replaced.