2004: a few final words

Highs: the music and the overall experience of the Festival International de Benicassim in Spain in August - great music, great atmosphere, great weather; getting to see Kraftwerk at last;
revisiting Venice in September and exploring the backstreets;
visiting Florence for the first time and catching on quickly that there was more to it than queueing for galleries;
Olafur Eliason's 'Weather Project' at Tate Modern, London - smoke and mirrors on a large scale;
Mark Kozelek holding us spellbound for a couple of hours in Dublin;
Patti Smith and her band in small scale in the Elmwood Hall in Belfast;
BBC Music Live being based in Northern Ireland in May, especially great to have 6Music on FM for six weeks;
the four-venue free festival that was the first night of BelFEST, not forgetting the fact that there is a new venue in town -the Spring and Airbrake;
American Music Club reformed, Brian Wilson's 'Smile' was released, and there was just so much new music around, and so much diversity that it almost became a bad thing!
reading: Jeffrey Eugenides -'Middlesex', Paul Auster -'The Book of Illusions', DBC Piere - 'Vernon God Little'
watching/ re-watching: Lost in Translation, the Three Colours trilogy, the Sopranos, Shameless, Mulholland Drive, Twin Peaks box set, 21 Grams, Shaun of the Dead, Channel 4's Peepshow.

Low: the death of John Peel in late October was a huge blow, things just won't be the same anymore.