Party hard

They’re going to laugh at me here for saying it but fuck ’em, I don’t care! The musical highlight of the year happened between 9.45 and 10.30pm on Saturday January 26. Yup, that’s when the Godlike Andrew WK partied Dublin’s Ambassador Theatre into complete and total submission.

Dumb? Yes. Clichéd? Undoubtedly. The purest rock ’n’ roll adrenaline rush since The Clash? You bet!

Scoff all you like, but the boy Wilkes-Krier is worth a hundred of your instrumental post-rock bands/collectives/whatever the hell they want to be called. My only regret is that reports of him getting jiggy with Kelly Osbourne proved to be untrue. Imagine the babies they’d have!

Andrew WK wasn’t alone in crashing the Clarkian yoghurt truck this year (thanks to James in the Art Department for that superb metaphor). The Streets in Dublin, The Hives in Belfast, The Polyphonic Spree in Fairyhouse and Wilt in the arsehole of Austrian nowhere were so disgustingly good it hurt. While the first three are getting their just critical desserts cross-channel, Wilt’s My Medicine opus has inexplicably been ignored by my UK colleagues. Maybe it’s time for Cormac & Co. to wave two fingers at Blighty and set sail for the States, where they treat their loud-but-melodic bands with respect.

Other people who made genius records include Queens Of The Stone Age, Supergrass, Sugababes, Leonard Cohen, Johnny Cash, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, DJ Shadow, The Dandy Warhols, Cornershop and Primal Scream, whose Evil Heat album was a spectacular return to form.

Clark cannot live by music alone, though, which is where Messrs. Moyes and Rooney come in. Everton beating Arsenal 2-1 at Fortress Goodison with that wondergoal was the prompt for the wildest drinking session I’ve had since, well, David Beckham scored that penalty against Argentina. Never mind drawing all your games and going out heroically on spot-kicks, England actually managed to win a couple of their World Cup games.

Villains of the year? Roy Keane for letting everybody – most of all himself – down in Saipan. The Libertines for producing the most pathetic excuse for a gig I’ve seen in an aeon. And George Bush for being the most nationalistic, warmongering, up-his-own-arse politician since his Dad.

On the plus side, 2002 was the year when we were introduced to Six Feet Under, reintroduced to Alan Partridge and had to pinch ourselves because The Sopranos was so unbelievably good. There was also lots of positive personal stuff – ah, the love of a good woman! – but I’m not going to bore you with all that.

Let’s just say that, as years go, 2002 was a corker.