When I retire to my country pile to write the first volume of my memoirs, 2005 will go down as the year that music got seriously good again.
From the provincial towns of Newcastle, Sunderland and Sheffield – sounds like a Smiths song! – came bands like Maxïmo Park, Futureheads and The Arctic Monkeys with not only corking tunes, but humour, passion and all the other stuff that Radiohead seem to have forgotten about.
Having first met them when they were knee-high to a Paddy Casey – by the way, isn’t Eyebrowy fab on the telly? – it was great to see The Killers, Snow Patrol and Franz Ferdinand all fulfilling their stadium potential.
Getting to watch Franz from the side of the stage at Lansdowne was an honour and a privilege that even an overactive smoke machine couldn’t diminish. To see a band at the peak of their powers having so much fun makes up for all the turgid alt. country/whiny singer-songwriter/bloated stadium/heroin-chic indie bollocks that arrives in daily to HP Towers by the truckload.
In case you’re wondering, no, I’m not a member of the Wilco, Ryan Adams, Coldplay and Babyshambles fan clubs.
The Metropolis of the Year award goes to Montreal for giving us not only Arcade Fire but also Stars, a band of such gorgeousness that I’ve actually shed sober tears to their music.
Oxegen and the Electric Picnic were both belting, with the latter just about shading it by dint of 1) Kraftwerk and 2) The Spanish chorizo pie, mushy peas and gravy I scoffed to cheer myself up having watched James Blunt murder The Pixies’ ‘Where’s Is My Mind?’. He might be crap at choosing covers, but the ‘You’re Beautiful’ man turned out to be a top interviewee, as were Piers Morgan, the Foos, Doves, Ralf Hutter, Moby and Liam Gallagher who I thank very much for talking into my iPOD.
Football wise there was agony (Everton being rogered 5-1 in Bucharest) and ecstasy (England stuffing the Argies) in almost equal measure.
I still want to have Tim Cahill’s babies, and were I to find Charlotte Hatherley and/or The Chalet ladies in my stocking on Christmas morning it will have been a near-perfect year.